Uzumaki
by AlmostElectric
Summary: Uchiha Satsuki, avenger, doesn't love anything, or anyone. Not revenge, not tomatoes, and definitely – definitely! – not Uzumaki Naruto. But when she winds up on a genin team with him, she realises there's more to his smile than teeth and sunshine. Female!Sasuke
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Goddammit, I just lost my first runthrough of this authors note. Yeah, ATLLF new chapter is due out really soon. But meanwhile, read this. Later on, I promise I'll make you cry. Thanks for being so supportive with Tenketsu and ATLLF. You're all super cool.**

**Disclaimer: This applies to the whole fic. I host no claim to the Naruto franchise whatsoever. I am exercising non-profit use of the plot, characters and setting for entertainment purposes. Thanks.**

**Please read and review, it helps me out a bunch when you critique my writing! Without further ado, here's Uzumaki!**

* * *

_Uzumaki_

* * *

_Uchiha Satsuki, avenger, doesn't love anything, or anyone. Not revenge, not tomatoes, and definitely – definitely! – not Uzumaki Naruto. But when she winds up on a genin team with him, she realises there's more to his smile than teeth and sunshine._

* * *

_Chapter 1_

* * *

The butterfly effect has been exemplified in a million walks of life, but in this one, it comes into play when Umino Iruka waits at home.

A war is raging outside. A nine-tailed demon fox is swinging his tails and crushing buildings and ninja alike, stomping and roaring like a furious bull.

After hours of warfare, the fox is sealed into a tiny blonde boy, and the Hokage and his wife fall dead.

All details appear to be the same.

In another walk of life, Umino Iruka was an orphan.

But today, his parents come home.

* * *

"...Uchiha Satsuki, and Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto launched up from his seat, expression contorted with indignation. "Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka looked at him exasperatedly. "Yes, Naruto. I know you and Satsuki don't get along. That's the point."

Naruto could have ripped that desk out of the wall and thrown it at Iruka's face that very second. How he _hated_ Iruka. Probably more than Satsuki.

"But Shikamaru and Chouji are together! And Inori and Koji! No one else is with someone they don't like!"

His teacher pinned him with a cold look. "Please sit down, Naruto."

He _definitely_ hated Iruka more than Satsuki.

Iruka finished reading out the project pairings, and the bell went. He left for break with a nod, leaving the children in the classroom to discuss their research projects.

"Aa! Naruto!"

Naruto's head shot up from its slumped state on the desk, shooting a wide grin at Sakura. Her angry face didn't bode well for him, likely, but he tried to keep up the guise nonetheless.

"Ah, Sakura-chan! Good mornin-"

Impressively, Sakura completely ignored Naruto. "Satsuki-san! Do you want to be partners? We can swap... since, y'know..."

The implied comment stung. Naruto huffed, turning his gaze to the front of the classroom and settling his chin on his folded arms. "Yeah, well, I didn't want to be with her either."

Satsuki shot him a cold look from his side. "Like I wanted to be paired up with you, dead last."

"Shut _up!_"

"Idiot! Who do you think you're talking to?!"

* * *

Lunch came. Satsuki and Naruto both ate alone.

* * *

Satsuki had sat down first, and as it were, next to her was the last seat – then again, there was a seat by Takeshi. Naruto had a brief debate with himself, but then he remembered that time when Takeshi had followed him home and laughed at his apartment – now he didn't like her, but Satsuki would never do_ that -_

He sat down next to her. She didn't respond.

"Naruto! What are you doing?!"

Ah, now he knew who the other seat had been for.

"Sakura-chan," he grinned, attempting to remain cheerful but-

"You're not sitting next to Satsuki-san!"

And with that, he found Sakura pushing onto his seat in a surprisingly skillful way that pushed him right out of it.

"Satsuki-san-" Sakura sang, moving her seat closer to the Uchiha.

"Stand up."

Sakura blinked. "What? But Satsuki-san-"

Satsuki didn't even turn her gaze to Sakura as she said it, chin settled on the bridge of her fingers as she stared forward, unmoving. "Stand up. Naruto got there first."

Before, she'd not been sure she'd heard, but it was certain now; Sakura was sure Satsuki had said that. She laughed nervously, eyes flitting about the room as she scratched the side of her face nervously. "B-But, uh... Satsuki-san... Naruto's, you know – why would you want to-"

The dark-haired girl finally turned to Sakura, and she wished she'd not spoken. Satsuki's dark eyes made her feel as though she was looking into a very deep and empty pit.

"You're annoying."

"Hey! Don't talk to Sakura-chan like that!" Naruto cried, launching himself up at the speed of light and pointing an accusatory finger at Satsuki. The girl looked back at him with an expression that could have froze the sun.

"Usuratonkachi."

Naruto's fury flared like an oxygen-fueled blaze.

"Don't call me that!" He grabbed Satsuki's collar, and she coldly- uncaringly (oh, how that _infuriated_ him!) grabbed his in turn, his eyes angry but hers lightly disfigured from an expression of mild irritation – Naruto imagined it to be the expression you might make at an unwanted fly. "Don't try and help me like you're better than me, you bastard!"

Satsuki gave him a cold stare, the only indication that she'd even heard him a displeased turn of the lips.

It only served to make him angrier, and Naruto hooked her collar towards him, gritting his teeth. "You act like you're so much better than _everyone!_" His face was too close.

Satsuki's lip curled cockily. "Hn. I'm definitely better than you, dead last."

Naruto slugged her across the face, and the class fell into uproar.

* * *

Satsuki's jaw still ached when she turned up to the academy the next morning, and there was an ugly purple bruise to prove it.

Today, Sakura came in before Naruto, but sat by Takeshi instead. For a moment, she had stared tentatively at the seat, shooting Satsuki an apologetic (_'-hah-'_) smile before pulling a seat up by Takeshi and twisting her fingers in her lap.

No one else even tried to sit by Satsuki today.

Until Naruto arrived late, and he sat beside Satsuki in silence. His face was swollen too, his right knuckles bruised more than his left, but his swelling was lesser. Satsuki could have sworn she had hit him harder than that.

Naruto didn't even bother to look at her today.

Not that she cared.

"In this research project, each pair will be studying a figure of significance in Konoha."

"Like Hokage-ojii-chan?" Naruto yawned, fingers tapping on the desk.

Iruka gave him a stony look. "If you want to show that kind of disrespect to our Hokage, stand outside."

"But he _is _old-"

"-and you _are_ bottom of the class, Naruto. Pay attention." Iruka didn't even look up from his papers, but the comment was harsh. The slump of Naruto's shoulders made it seem like he was reeling from the impact. The classroom resounded from the muffled chuckles and snorts. Naruto muttered something half-heartedly bitter to himself, and then his head turned to the window.

"As I was saying..."

Naruto blatantly ignored him, finger tracing a figure of eight on the desk. It encroached onto her sector of the desk too much for her complete comfort.

For some reason, Satsuki ignored it instead of slamming her fist down on his fingers. They still didn't speak for two weeks.

* * *

"I don't want one."

She hated them. Every single one that had come and gone. They'd tried to teach her how to behave like a lady, ikebana (_"-because flower arranging is very proper for a kunoichi, you know?"_), how to cook foods she'd never eat (_'-for the inevitable future when I become a housewife, cooking for my shinobi husband-'_), how to dress her 'curves'-

"Satsuki, you know we've got to assign another."

"I don't want one," she stressed, her eyes glinting dangerously and her hands clenching at her sides. Her posture was straight and forced. "I can cook, and I can clean. I managed as a kid. I'll manage now."

-not that she had any; her body was slim and lithe and devoid of any unnecessary fat, her hips a barely visible gradient, and her chest as flat as it'd ever be. Curves. _Hah._

The Third sighed, his eyes peering over the steeple of his intertwined hands. "As much as a child, I respected your request to be left alone, upon your genin exam growing closer, it'd be much easier if someone was at home to help you with your training and perform the menial chores so your training can be more efficient."

Satsuki _knew_ it had something to do with her dropping grades.

"My grade dropped because I was paired with Uzumaki Naruto."

The Third's eyebrows rose. "Hm?"

"My grade dropped because of him," Satsuki reiterated, her fingernails digging into her palm. "The boy is insufferable to work with. So I refused."

"You refused?"

"Yes."

"You allowed yourself to get a score of zero because of him?"

The young Uchiha simply scowled in response, and Hiruzen sighed, closing his eyes.

"Satsuki. I can't excuse your grades because of_ that._ I know Naruto well, and he's a perfectly friendly young boy. As a ninja, you'll have to go on missions-"

"Then you'll know to never put me on a team with him," Satsuki interrupted. "He is an obnoxious idiot."

"Teamwork is important, Satsuki." Sarutobi's tone left no room for a counter-argument. "Uzumaki Naruto or not. I'll be sending Yumiko over tonight."

Satsuki's mood visibly darkened, her eyebrows knotting her face into a furious glare. Her lips thinned, and she turned around, her hair cutting through the air as she did.

"Feel free. I won't be opening the door tonight."

* * *

"I don't_ want_ one!"

He hated them. Passionately. There was no one except the Hokage himself that Naruto would trust in his home, cooking his food and cleaning. The last time a guardian had been assigned, Naruto had been somehow both isolated and betrayed.

She had promised to pick him up one day, and he had told all of his friends (could he call them that?) about how he was going to get picked up, too. One by one, everyone had left; Chouji picked up by his plump mother, Shikamaru piggy-backed home by his look-alike dad. In the end, Naruto had been ashamed and alone.

When she attempted to return, Naruto had barricaded the door shut, and never let another one of those nannies, carers - whatever they were - into his apartment.

"Naruto, we've got to assign one. I'm sorry."

"Nuh-uh! I do – not – _want_ – one!" For emphasis, Naruto made a large cross with his arms. "You know what the other ones were like, Ojii-chan!"

Sarutobi did.

"That said, Naruto, the state of your grades is worse than ever before. It's best that you focus your time and energy onto improving them, rather than cooking, cleaning... you know the like. As per your request, I stopped assigning them, but-"

Naruto grabbed tufts of his blonde hair and pulled, yelling. "It's all Satsuki's fault!"

Sarutobi's eyebrows raised, and he drew from his pipe. _'Great.' _"Oh?"

"She's the reason I failed that stupid joint project! She is so- so- argh!" Naruto pulled at his hair in frustration, looking to all the world as if he was going to kick the Hokage's desk off right there. "She just drives me crazy! She acts like she's better than me all the time! I don't care if she's a girl or not, I just want to beat the crap out of her!"

The Hokage sighed, a hazy plume of thick smoke spreading out onto the ceiling. "That doesn't mean you should, Naruto."

"If you met her-"

"I spoke to her just before, Naruto. She's just as unwilling to have a temporary caregiver as you are."

Naruto often forgot that Satsuki was also an orphan. He huffed. "Yeah, well, why're you doin' it then?"

"I had a feeling you'd be unwilling," Sarutobi murmured, one hand shuffling through papers on his desk. "I was going to offer you two remedial classes-"

"_What-!_"

"-but I've spoken to Iruka, and he says that the best course of action is that you redo the project, so this doesn't look quite so bad on your official scores."

Naruto groaned.

"Over this coming holiday, Iruka has requested you and Satsuki work together for two weeks, just like the allotted time for the original project. If you fail it, you two resit the year."

"_WHAT-!_"

The Third Hokage smiled. "Appreciate this chance you've been given, Naruto. You'd better go tell Satsuki-"

"That fucking bastard Iruka! I'm gonna to give him_ hell-!_"

Sarutobi regarded Naruto with a stern look, but the boy's fury left him oblivious. The Hokage looked at his work for a moment, signing off a document fluidly. "You can get started today." He didn't look up.

The young boy mumbled something.

"What is it, Naruto?"

"...dress?"

Sarutobi blinked.

"What's her address?"

With a wrinkled smile, Hiruzen wrote down Satsuki's address, and sent Naruto on his way.

* * *

The sun was setting beautifully over the Hokage tower, and the haphazard shadows cast about Satsuki's windowsill like a silhouette dance.

She was so much more tired than she should have been, and Satsuki found herself spooning tea leaves into a pot. The taste was bitter and too strong, a tinge of sweetness behind the overpowering scent.

The young Uchiha lay on top of her duvet, placing the teacup onto the end table. She stared out of the window for a moment before picking up her book, opening it to the bookmark and letting the slip of paper slide out of the pages. She took a sip of the tea.

"Oi!"

Satsuki almost let her teacup clatter to the floor.

"Satsuki, you bastard, open the goddamn-"

After composing herself and knotting her face into an acceptably ferocious scowl, Satsuki yanked the door open so hard that Naruto almost fell to her feet from the force he'd been banging on it with. She gritted her teeth.

_'Why the hell do you know where I live?' _"What do you want?"

"Hokage-ojii-chan told me to come here."

Satsuki hated Naruto, and she hated ambiguity just as much. "Naruto-!"

To her further displeasure, the blond pushed past her into her apartment. "We gotta redo that stupid project for Iruka-sensei, otherwise we fail."

Satsuki closed her eyes, invisible steam pouring out of her every crevice._ 'Failure is not an option. I have to become a ninja, soon, now – to kill him. I can't fail. Even if it means working with this idiot.'_

"Oi, what's with the-"

She heard the colossal crash of her bookcase toppling forward onto a young boy, and resisted the urge to give up on her revenge.

* * *

"Do you even know how to take care of plants?"

"Hn." Satsuki turned her nose up at the boy, nonchalantly – because she really didn't care! - but took careful note of how he was handling the plant. It was... strange.

Uzumaki Naruto was impolite and clumsy, and completely unrefined. He had no manners, and not an ounce of discipline in his body. But the moment the two had finished clearing up the bookcase, Naruto had taken the potted plant that Satsuki had bought on the spur of the moment and was... doing something that could be described as tending to it.

Satsuki didn't even know what to do upon the sight of the boy tracing the veins of the leaves, testing the soil with his fingertips, examining the undersides of the leaves; she hadn't imagined the boy had the capability to be careful within him.

"The soils not fertile any more. You got any... dunno, fruit skins? Stuff like that?"

As much as she didn't want to listen to a dead last, the plant did look sick, and she did like that plant.

Ten minutes later, and they were arguing again.

"Tomatoes? They're vegetables!"

"They're fruit, usuratonkachi."

"Agh- don't _call_ me that! Get something else!"

* * *

"So like- you know."

"No."

"Well... what are they?"

Silence. Eyebrow raise.

"I'm _asking_, okay?!"

"I don't know what you mean."

"What are they?"

"What's what?"

"One of those... things. Everyone but me knows!"

Satsuki blinked.

"Come _on! _Tell me the secret!"

"What are you on about, dead last?"

"What's a catra?!"

* * *

It was a while until Satsuki managed to sit Naruto down with some appropriate books, and keep his attention for long enough to explain the project.

"We're studying the Fourth Hokage."

Naruto's eyes widened in recognition, and he nodded, rocking back and forth on his crossed legs. "The yellow one, right?"

"Yes. The _yellow_ one."

"No need to be such a bastard about it-"

"Why do you call me that?"

Satsuki knew the answer before it came. 'You act like a boy' or 'You've got a chest like a boy'.

Naruto blinked. "Because you're a bastard!"

That was the first thing Satsuki liked about Naruto.

* * *

**A/N: CRITICISE ME. PLEASE. Also please forgive the problem with the linebreaks. has the most temperamental linebreaks I've ever used. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Wow, well... uh, I can't... the response to this story has been HUGELY overwhelming. I don't even know what to say, but thank you so, so much. It's been amazing. 40 follows in just over a day? I almost choked.**

**I don't really know why either, but it's nice all the same. So thanks for all of your support; it has been absolutely amazing.**

**And, because I FORGOT last chapter – my beta, Ekusukallybaa, is to thank for everything good you read in this story, ever. He is amazing and his stories shit on mine. Honestly. Check him out.**

**After this chapter, things will finally start becoming interesting. This might seem boring (and I really am sorry for that) but it's all kinda building up. I hope you'll like this story, and thank you so so SO much for the massive support you've all given me!**

* * *

_Uzumaki_

* * *

_Chapter 2_

* * *

"These books aren't enough."

"No."

"What?"

"No." Naruto was whining again, and Satsuki resisted the urge to uppercut him. "They're fine. No more books."

Satsuki gave Naruto a cold glare, gaze flicking back to her work. Naruto found himself mesmerised by the way she leafed through the pages. She looked up at him, slamming the book shut and sliding it on top of a badly-balanced book tower. "These aren't specific enough," she said.

"Why does it matter?"

Satsuki didn't respond. She was awkwardly positioned, half kneeling but mostly lying down; one arm held a textbook flat on the floor, and the other wrote fluidly in a notebook, the paper held down by an elbow.

Naruto frowned, standing up and stretching. The day had grown late.

"Ah! The view out of your window is amazing!"

And it was.

Satsuki's room looked onto the main square of Konoha and the Hokage building, and the sky above it. Evening had fallen, and the lanterns from the shop below gave the view a singed orange glow. The sun beamed over angular pipes and tanks of the Konoha rooftops, a half-complete jigsaw silhouette casting over the windowsill. Satsuki didn't say anything.

"Don't you like it?"

She didn't look up from her work. "Get some more sources."

"How?"

Satsuki didn't say anything, and Naruto turned, looking at her. She had a strange grace, and he couldn't figure out where it came from. Even amongst scattered paper and books, elbow pressed on the corner of a book with pen and paper in hand and hair half pulled up into a bun, she retained an eloquence that made every mistake seem intended. He cast his gaze away quickly.

"Do you have any cup ramen?"

She looked up, eyes flat and black. Naruto didn't feel certain she was looking at him.

"No," she said, unwinding herself from the mess of documents and folders like a coiling snake. Satsuki didn't knock a single thing out of place, even amidst the precarious mess.

"I'm going to Ichiraku then-"

"I'm making tea."

Naruto blinked. "What?"

Satsuki stood up, brushing strands of dark hair behind her ear and brushing past Naruto like a stranger. "I'm making tea," she repeated, reaching the cooker and turning on the gas.

"And?"

Satsuki stopped, settling the pan on the hob before stilling her movements. After a few seconds, she turned her head slightly, regarding Naruto on the edge of her peripheral vision.

"Stay."

* * *

The food was much nicer than Naruto had expected.

Not that he knew what he'd expected, anyway. But it was nice; it had been a rice bowl, but with eggs and meats and vegetables. He hated vegetables, and carefully picked around them; but on the off occasion he accidentally swallowed one, he didn't gag.

The air was heavy. Naruto hurriedly grabbed his chopsticks from their upright position in the bowl and left them beside it. "Uh-" he began. "...thanks."

Satsuki didn't respond, standing up and taking both bowls to the sink. Naruto watched her walk, her silhouette passing by the window for a second.

"Do you want some tea?" she said.

"Uh- I dunno, I..."

He heard the faint noise of water pouring.

"How do you like it?" she asked. Naruto felt like it was more a demand.

"I dunno. I don't really drink tea..."

She stirred the tea, the quiet noise of tapping porcelain resounding through the kitchen.

Naruto didn't really get why everyone liked Satsuki. She wasn't more popular than she was universally admired; she was pretty in an almost boyish way, with little lips and cold eyes. She had her hair out, not too long but not too short; boys and girls alike loved her. Sakura was a prime example – a girl that loved Satsuki, her refrigerator attitude, wasn't attracted to her more than she wanted to _be_ her.

He didn't know whether Satsuki was being cold now because that was her permanent state, or whether it was because he was here.

She set a rippling cup of tea down, and Naruto drank it hastily. The taste was sweet. "How did you make it?"

She didn't respond.

"'Cause... it's nice. Thanks..."

Naruto stared out the window. The sky was a soft array of colours now, the sun tucked away behind buildings and walls. He found himself counting birds, settling his chin on his folded arms.

Satsuki picked up her tea and bowls, soaping them in the sink with a sponge. She couldn't say for herself why she was being so accommodating, but she supposed that there was a lot at stake.

He was staring out the window, the blonde of his hair indistinguishable in his silhouette. She stopped running the water, drying her hands and approaching the table.

"Don't come tomorrow. I'll be out training-"

Naruto was asleep.

Satsuki blinked, leaning over to inspect his face. He was drooling.

She poked his cheek lightly. He didn't move, and she rolled her eyes.

Later on, Satsuki found herself tucking a blanket around his shoulders, and carefully sliding a pillow beneath his head.

She drew the curtains, dressing into her pyjamas quickly. She read in the light of a book lamp until early hours, but Naruto did not move.

The tea was left to get cold.

* * *

"_Shit-!_"

Satsuki awoke to the noise of a cup smashing and a chair toppling over. Her apartment was a single room, and she looked over with blurry vision to see Naruto rushing about confusedly. She groaned quietly, climbing out of bed.

"Sorry- uh, I didn't realise I slept here the whole night, I'm sorry, I really have to go-"

"Clean that crap up before you go," Satsuki said, rubbing her head and running her fingers through her hair. She stumbled over, careful to avoid the shards of porcelain. She wiped sleep from her eyes, grabbing a flannel from the sink and wiping the floor.

"No need to be such an ass," Naruto grumbled. "I have to go now, why didn't you wake me up?"

"I tried." _'I didn't really.'_

"Did you really?"

"Yes."_ 'No.'_

Naruto wiped his hands, checking his pockets for his keys. "I've gotta go- gotta water my plants! Speaking of which, bastard-"

-he was running out the door now-

"-have you named yours, yet?"

"Why would I name a plant, idiot?"

The door closed.

Satsuki found herself placing the plant on the balcony, to bask in the morning sunshine.

_'Naruto. I'll call it Naruto.'_

* * *

Satsuki's training wasn't that productive, that day.

She hated using the training grounds and she'd dare not touch the Uchiha private grounds for fear of the memories – so she preferred to train in the woods.

That day, Satsuki placed the targets just as_ he _did, and flung kunai like her life depended on it. The timing was never right. She could never get that blind spot. There had been one occasion when she had, and it had felt fake; it had felt like a fluke. Sure enough, Satsuki had never hit it again.

After practicing her taijutsu against the hardest target she could find – a tree – Satsuki returned home, allowing herself the reprieve of buying fresh tomatoes on the way home. In her greed, she opened the packet on the way up the stairs to her apartment, sinking her teeth into the plump red skin. Juice leaked down her chin.

"Where have you been all day?"

Satsuki almost dropped her tomato. Naruto was sat on the step to her apartment, looking bored with a folder on his lap. His grin was impish and wide.

"I was training."

He waved the response off as though he'd never asked. "You won't believe what I got!" he grinned, shaking the folder in her face. Satsuki ignored him, turning her key in the door and stepping over him.

Satsuki was not going to ask what he got, but it took more than that to deter Naruto.

"I was rooting around the Hokage's office," he began. "And I grabbed a file on the Fourth Hokage from his library-thing! It's so thick, look, see?" Naruto made a point of showing Satsuki the width of the file. It was undeniably thick with paper.

"That's probably illegal." It _definitely_ was.

Naruto laughed. "Yeah, whatever! The old man probably knows it was me. If it was that bad, I'd already be in trouble. I've been here all day!"

Satsuki sighed.

"Whatever. Remember to put it back after."

They became quickly engrossed in work again, and Satsuki found that Naruto had a strange talent for visual work.

"So, uh- let's make a time-line! Let's do it like that! Like, Minato is born. Minato does this. Blah blah, Minato dies."

Naruto began taking the little dated notes of Minato's life, and placing them on a rough timeline. Oddly, and very, very slowly, Satsuki began to see the time-line take form. Naruto insisted on taking some of the photos in the folder, and putting them on too.

The first time Satsuki had taken out a photo, the realisation hit her, and she'd near jumped.

The Fourth Hokage was the spitting image of Uzumaki Naruto.

But the more she thought about it, the more the resemblance fell apart before her eyes; the eyes were a different shape, Naruto's cheeks fuller, Naruto's jaw rounder, his smile wider. The Fourth Hokage was also of an impressive height.

And aside from the physical aspect, Naruto was Naruto, and he was the Fourth Hokage, equipped with the status as a legendary hero and a flee-on-sight order. They couldn't be more different.

Satsuki found herself laughing at her own stupidity.

* * *

The next day, Satsuki woke up peacefully, and alone. Her plant, Naruto, looked happier, almost. She watered it, and the water pooled in the valleys of the leaves, dripping down slowly to ration the water. She decided that the plant was too clever for its name.

Naruto arrived later that day, and he came with a large piece of card. They spent the day writing on it, pinning pictures and writing events. It was detailed, and Satsuki did all of the writing at Naruto's demand. She understood why, when she saw Naruto's atrocious scrawling of his name on the back.

That night, Naruto brought cup ramen, and Satsuki made herself onigiri. She wasn't hungry.

The next three days continued similarly, until, at the end of the third day, it was complete. They asked the Third Hokage if they could give the project to Iruka the next day, and he said yes. Naruto and Sasuke were given Iruka's address, and Naruto wailed about how they would manage to get the large piece of card down the stairs.

* * *

"Let's throw it out the window."

Satsuki gave Naruto a glare.

"Come _on_. This is really long, and we're just going to bend it!"

She twitched. "I'm not throwing it out of the window."

"It's easier!"

"_No._"

Naruto pouted, clutching the edges of the card. "But we worked so _hard!_ I don't want to bend it!"

"Don't screw up then, usuratonkachi."

He didn't, but it was a close call as they exited the stairwell, the card becoming jammed to the point where it appeared as though bending it was the only way through (but with some wiggling, it was very carefully managed). Once the hardest part was finished, they both awkwardly manoeuvred through the masses of people, trying to reach an unknown address by asking unwilling strangers about street names and districts.

Eventually, they reached Iruka's home. The grass was well groomed, the hedges trimmed and tiny flowers not-quite-wild peering through the metal fences like shy children.

They knocked, and Iruka smiled slightly at seeing their massive board (less so at seeing Naruto). After explanation, he agreed to view the presentation in his front garden.

With a sharp look from Satsuki, Naruto began.

"Namikaze Minato was born in a fishing village at the edge of the Land of Fire; the village of Kufuchi. His father was a fisherman, but since the fishing industry was being taken over by governmental ships, he sent Minato, with plenty of money, to live with a relative in Konoha, and to send money home once he started doing missions.

"At the age of ten, Minato graduated the academy and became a genin. He was said to be a genius, the kind that comes only once a generation."

Satsuki began then, unfolding a photo on the board that depicted Minato on a team, with a white haired man standing over them laughing.

"Minato was assigned into a genin team, taught by their sensei Jiraiya, one of the legendary Sannin. After the unfortunate deaths of his teammates, Jiraiya took Minato under his personal wing. He quickly became jounin, and was assigned a genin team himself.

"During the Third Shinobi World War, Minato lost two of his genin; one of whom was killed at the Kannabi bridge, in Kusagakure. Later on in the mission which brought them there, he killed over one thousand shinobi using his trademark jutsu, the technique that had earned him the title 'Konoha's Yellow Flash'. The jutsu entails quick movement via classified high-level fuuinjutsu. Minato's amazing speed and skill with it meant that many praised him as the fastest man alive. He was a genius."

Naruto quickly unfolded a weathered picture of a three-pronged kunai on the board, and continued.

"At the age of 28, Minato was nominated as Hokage, but his reign was short. The Kyuubi attacked the village, causing uproar. Minato protected the village with his life, sealing the Kyuubi away into the Shinigami using the Shiki Fujin, and he was condemned to have to fight the demon for eternity in the stomach of the Shinigami. For his sacrifice, he is regarded as one of the greatest heroes the village has ever produced.

"At the time of his death, Minato was five foot ten, and was well-known for his laid-back nature. He enjoyed reading, and was said to have dreamt of being Hokage since he was in the academy."

Satsuki unveiled a picture of a young Minato; very young indeed, grinning widely amongst his classmates, under a tree. The picture was badly taken.

Iruka applauded, smiling widely and commending them both on the excellent job. Naruto beamed, but Satsuki expressed little more than indifference (yet, he could see a tiny smirk playing on her lips).

"You've both attained the highest mark for this. The presentation was excellent, the info was accurate and it was read clearly, concisely, and chronologically. You'll be able to progress to next year. Well done, you two. I wasn't sure if you'd get along."

"Me neither," Naruto said.

They left, Iruka kindly offering to put the piece of card away somewhere. Just as Satsuki prepared to turn the corner, Naruto grabbed her arm.

"Hey! Where're ya goin'?"

"Home," she said.

"No, let's go buy some stuff! Let's celebrate, since we got an amazing grade!"

Satsuki blinked, but submitted, allowing herself to be dragged along. They reached a dingy convenience store, the woman at the counter looking bored. The sign read the hours for a Friday as seven until six. She noted the time; it was close to six.

The bell above the door rang as they walked in, Naruto lazily hooking his hands around the back of his head as he walked. "Let's get sweets."

She didn't say anything.

"Okay, okay. So we need... chocolate. Obviously. What type?"

Silence.

"Yeah, all of them. I know. I was just checking."

The one-sided conversation continued for five or so minutes, and Naruto ended up with a bag bulging with chocolate and sweets. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet as they queued, two old ladies in front of them dropping their money at every possible opportunity.

After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the till- but just as they set the stuff down, the woman left the key in the till and went into the back of the shop wordlessly. For a moment, Satsuki waited.

"Excuse me?" she said, after a few moments more. The cashier came back out, now donned in a coat with her bag. She gave Satsuki a smile that made her feel ill.

"We were just closing up now, honey." Her expression was masking a badly-disguised disgust, or something alike to it.

Satsuki checked the time again. Ten to six.

"But you're not closed yet."

Naruto tugged on her arm. "It's fine, okay. Let's just go home."

"I'm afraid we are, sweetheart."

Satsuki found her tone escalating. "No, it's not. It's ten to six."

"We're finished for the day," the cashier reiterated, smile wrinkled and entirely dishonest.

"No, you finish at six. It's ten to."

The cashier shrugged, adjusting her bag. "We leave ten minutes early sometimes," she said, her face twisting into a jargon version of apologetic.

No matter what she said, Satsuki knew well when an act had been done out of spite and little more. Naruto's insisting grip on her arm persisted.

With a final scowl, Satsuki hooked the bag off the desk and headed for the door.

"Oi, you can't just take that-!"

"Oh really?" Satsuki sneered. "But I've paid for it."

The cashier frowned. "No you haven't-"

With a sweeping, strong movement, Satsuki lashed several coins and a note onto the floor. The woman looked at her, mouth agape, and the Uchiha simply shrugged in response.

"Yes, I have."

With that, Satsuki turned out of the shop, a slack-jawed Naruto in tow.

* * *

"You know, it wasn't_ that _important-"

"Shut up."

For once, Naruto listened, and they walked in silence, the rustling of the plastic bag the only noise passing between them. Satsuki shifted the bag's weight to her elbow.

"She was being rude," she said.

"You didn't need to cause a scene," Naruto bit back. "We could have just gone somewhere else."

Satsuki didn't respond.

The walk home was silent, and though it hadn't been discussed, her feet led her to her own apartment, and she walked in, looking briefly at the plant and then placing the bag on the table beside the couch.

"Well, since we argued so much for some stupid sweets, they'd better taste nice..."

She sat beside him for a while, and after halting the all-consuming stream of food to his mouth, he gave her a strange look.

"Aren't you going to have some?"

Satsuki looked away for a moment.

"Huh? Why not?"

"I don't like sweets."

Naruto blinked. "How can you _not_ like sweets?! And why'd you yell at that lady if you didn't even_ want_ any?!"_  
_

_'For you.'_

Satsuki snorted. She didn't answer.

* * *

**A/N: Aaw. Well, enjoy it while it lasts... *wink***

**Thanks for your support. I'll bring out the next chapter ASAP; this is the last chapter of "academy" time. So, things will finally be moving on next chapter. I hope you'll like it. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This chapter is shorter, but I don't feel anything else deserves to be in this chapter.**

** You guys have given me the most unbelievable support. I don't even know what to say, because I really don't deserve it. Thank you for all of your favourites and follows and reviews! They make me smile, and encourage me to write quicker – I'm not bribing you, but it's the truth. I don't want to let you guys down, you know?**

** I owe everything to Ekusukallybaa, my ideas man and amazing amazing AMAZING beta. Check him out.**

** Also, be warned. I told you to enjoy those chapters while they lasted...**

* * *

_ Uzumaki_

* * *

_ Chapter 3_

* * *

Naruto spent the rest of his holiday living a loose schedule that varied between eating, sleeping, and training. On the Thursday, he had briefly considered contacting Satsuki for something else to do, but reminded himself that now she wasn't obliged to spend time with him, she would just kick him out of her apartment.

Or, she wouldn't be in. Though, for all training she did, he never saw her in the Training Grounds.

The Genin exam arrived too quickly, and the night before, as though he was sensing his fear, Mizuki invited Naruto out for ramen. The gesture was a welcome one.

The beef was wonderful and succulent, the noodles salty and perfect. Naruto couldn't fully appreciate the taste.

"How are you, Naruto?"

Slurping up one last noodle, Naruto grinned. "Great, Mizuki-sensei! The food's amazing! Thanks!"

He knew that wasn't really what Mizuki had meant. Naruto did his best to avoid letting on.

Mizuki smiled, eating a smaller bowl of noodles himself – slower. Their slurping was in unison, and Naruto ordered another bowl. Mizuki smiled into his food at Naruto's unprecedented eating speed, but said nothing.

"Are you prepared for your exam, Naruto?"

_ 'As prepared as I can be...' _"Yeah! Stop worrying, Mizuki-sensei. Are you prepared?"

His teacher laughed, the smile natural on his face. They ate for a while in silence, but the air was not thick.

"Naruto, if you're worried about your exam..."

Naruto sighed, pushing away his last bowl and cradling his stomach. "I... I dunno, Mizuki-sensei. I try, and I try, but I can't get the Bunshin down... I've tried for so long."

"I could teach you?" Mizuki offered, but Naruto shook his head.

"We only have one night... it's fine. I'm just gonna hope that the Bunshin technique doesn't come up!"

Naruto was laughing, but the sound screamed of emptiness. Mizuki gave him a sad look.

"Stupid. Don't leave it so last minute, next time."

_ 'Didn't you want to ask me?'_

"_You're_ stupid, Mizuki-sensei!" Naruto huffed, staring into his food and folding his arms.

"Naruto... if you're struggling with chakra control, then tonight, I'll try and help you-"

"Really?! You're the_ best_, Mizuki-sensei!"

"-only for a while, okay? Not too late! Oi!"

* * *

"Make me a bunshin."

Naruto hated bunshins, and his face fell. Mizuki laughed heartily, ruffling his hair and smiling.

"There's no need to look so miserable, Naruto."

"But there is," he whined. "I can't do this. I hate bunshins and I can't do them. It's not possible!"

"Why?" Mizuki asked.

Naruto pouted, pulling hands rigidly to his sides with a frustrated expression. "I don't know! But I can't! That's all there is to it!"

For the best part of an hour, Mizuki prodded about Naruto's hand, demanding he summon chakra and then stop; and then he came to a conclusion.

"You've got a humongous amount of chakra, Naruto. Huge."

Naruto blinked.

"Really? That's good, right?"

Mizuki smiled. "Yes, it is," he said. "But it means that using a tiny bit for something like the Bunshin no Jutsu is harder. Here, Naruto. I'll teach you something."

"Ooh! Ooh! Is it- is it cool? Like, a super cool jutsu?"

"Have you ever climbed a tree, Naruto?"

Hours later, Naruto had ascended to the first branch; his extremities ached- _everywhere_ ached, his head span.. He'd done it – climbed a tree without his hands! Using chakra alone. His cheeks hurt from his smile. His smile that Mizuk was proud of him. Naruto had never felt so invigorated as when he had looked back at Mizuki to see his hopeful smile – no, proud! Encouraging and kind; Naruto had never felt so happy.

Naruto had never known the sensation of falling so well as then; after a few steps, he'd either repel himself from the bark, or slip down it. Most of the time, he was repelled; he'd never felt something so strange as being launched through the air every time he attempted to scale the tree.

The accomplishment warmed his heart, but not so much as Mizuki's pride. The way he ruffled his hair, pulling him to his chest and laughing heartily.

His Bunshin only looked a little less dead, but he tried to ignore that.

* * *

Naruto prayed with all his might that it would be anything but the Bunshin no Jutsu. He had resigned himself to the fact that it was physically impossible to produce one that wasn't pale or lifeless, but he had significantly improved them after honing his chakra control the night before.

He had all but mastered the henge and kawarimi; but Naruto stood by his word. The bunshin wasn't possible. Naruto tried, and failed every time. At first, he'd asked help from other students, who had tried to help. But Naruto had known that their problems with the technique hadn't been the same, as Mizuki had proven. Naruto had too much chakra. It was near impossible for him to siphon off a tiny amount for the Bunshin no Jutsu.

He entered the academy with a heart of lead.

"Today, the genin test will be on the bunshin."

Naruto pushed down vomit.

After everyone settled down, Iruka called students in one by one. Naruto stole a glance at Satsuki; her expression was bored. He imitated it. He was_ not_ nervous.

"Uzumaki Naruto, into the testing room."

He was nervous as _hell._

Naruto walked in, quietly, past his classmates – their gazes burned his back, their laughing sniggers and whispers burned his ears – and into the practice room.

He barely heard Iruka's request for three clones. Mizuki, at his side, smiled at him.

Naruto undoubtedly and entirely preferred Mizuki.

He tried; very honestly, he did. Naruto summoned as little chakra as he could, trying to form a bunshin, but it was like a pale, washed out balloon, collapsing the floor slowly but surely. The failure stung.

"I'm very sorry, Naruto, but..."

Naruto didn't care. He bit his lip, pushing back tears.

"Iruka... don't you think we should let him pass?"

Naruto blinked, bringing his gaze up from the floor. Mizuki had a gentle expression on his face.

"He did create one bunshin, to be fair," Mizuki said, half-smiling.

Naruto's heart became lighter, just for a moment.

Iruka sighed deeply. "Mizuki, you know I can't pass him for that. It's not even a decent bunshin. I'm sorry, Naruto, but you fail."

On his way out, Naruto tried to forget the sharp but welcoming gleam of the headbands on the table.

* * *

Satsuki saw Naruto leave the classroom, looking defeated and tearful.

She wanted to go up and yell at him. Yell at him for not trying hard enough, yell at him for not becoming a ninja.

But she didn't understand why she wanted to. So Satsuki didn't say anything at all.

* * *

Naruto had found himself, legs swinging, looking onto the village with Mizuki at his side.

"You know, Iruka didn't pass you because he wants you to be strong," Mizuki said.

The boy winced, biting the inside of his cheek.

"I mean it, Naruto." Mizuki leant back, wind brushing white strands of hair out of his face. "Being a ninja's hard, you know? Iruka doesn't want you to go into the ninja world unprepared. Neither do I."

Naruto cast his gaze downwards. "I know, but I really wanted to graduate this time."

"Well, I guess I have no choice but to tell you..."

* * *

An Oiroke no Jutsu later, Naruto was in the middle of the forest, a huge scroll laying in front of him.

"Naruto!"

He whipped his head around, and then smiled. "Mizuki-sensei!"

Mizuki strolled towards him, expression soft. He knelt down slightly, ruffling Naruto's hair. "How are you doing?"

"Great, Mizuki-sensei! I can finally do the Bunshin technique!" Naruto said, grinning widely. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Mizuki blinked, rubbing his eyes to see if he had double-vision as he looked around. The area was truly filled to the brim with orange, and he smiled.

"Naruto," he said. "That's... that's amazing! That jutsu..."

_'That jutsu is an S-Rank...! Most jounin can only create three at most... but this kid... there's thousands!'_

Naruto grinned, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "Thanks, Mizuki-sensei!"

Mizuki smiled back, before his expression turned serious. "Naruto," he said. "I have to tell you the truth."

"What is it?"

Mizuki brushed his hair behind his ear. "I'm leaving this village tonight."

Naruto blinked. "Wha- why?"

"The truth is, Naruto... long ago, the Fourth Hokage sealed the Kyuubi away. But it was too powerful to destroy. Instead... he sealed it inside of you."

The young boy blinked, and then his jaw went slack, eyes widening. "M-Me? Inside of me? The... the Kyuubi?!"

"Yes." Mizuki stopped for a moment. "I'm... I'm sorry for all those years. Those years of people hating you for something you're not. Some people blame you for what the Kyuubi did."

"B-But! B-But I'd _never-_"

"I know."

Naruto's expression was tearful, and Mizuki shook his head, ruffling Naruto's hair once again.

"To tell the truth," Mizuki began, "I once hated you, too. I couldn't see past what was inside of you. But one day... I came to see it. You were just a child... everyone mistreated you. You never understood why... you had no love, no care. You were so _alone._

"This village only wants you for the power within you. But they mistreat you... and tonight, I am escaping. And I want you to come with me."

"W... Where to?"

"Orochimaru-sama. He is a scientist, who long escaped Konoha himself. A genius. And I believe that within his village, you would be treated as not only a human being, but maybe a prince! Within Orochimaru-sama's territory, power is everything. That jutsu you just performed... it's the sign of a truly powerful shinobi, Naruto."

Mizuki's expression made Naruto feel warm like he never had.

_'Does he really believe in me?'_

"Come with me... this village is just holding you back! I would have escaped alone... but I don't want you to stay here, Naruto. All these years of abuse and terror... don't you want to escape?"

Naruto's heart pounded like a drum in his ears.

"Mizuki-sensei, I-"

In the years to come, Naruto would never forget the noise of lightning meeting flesh.

With a fast and brutal cut of light, Mizuki's chest was pierced by a gloved hand, shredded alveoli spattering Naruto's face as Mizuki took a wheezing gasp through his mangled lung.

His heart spluttered, his lungs coughed, and with a final, wet rasp, Mizuki's legs trembled and he slid off the man's arm like a sword from a sheath.

Even when the chunks of gore had been removed, Naruto could not clean himself of that day. He could not clean his eyes of the ANBU mask, he could not clean his lips of the shredded cells, nor his nose and tongue of the stench of death.

And he could never clean his heart of Mizuki, the man who'd cared, and never, ever, of his bloody corpse.

* * *

**A/N: FATALITY.**

**Constructive criticism is more than welcome. Please. PLEASE.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I apologise for lateness! It took me a week to even write this down, so I apologise. Work and stuff, y'know? But, whatever. This chapter is a lot sweeter than the last one, so I hope you like it.**

**The support, as always, has been INSANE. I don't even know why you guys LIKE this stuff, but thank you so, so much! It's the most motivating thing ever!**

**And lastly, please check out my amazing beta Ekusukallybaa, who patiently sifts through this crap and makes it readable just for you! He's also the source of everything good you read here, so give him a pat on the back and read his stuff, in particular, the recently updated Rights of Succession, which promises to be exciting. Now, onwards!**

* * *

Uzumaki

* * *

Chapter 4

* * *

"Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Satsuki."

* * *

Sakura was fairly sure Satsuki would at least be a little more willing to be around her after they had been assigned onto a team together.

The girl was walking, hands in pockets-

"S-Satsuki-san? Uh, good morning! Or, is it afternoon? I'm not too su..."

Satsuki paused in her walk. "What?"

"U-Um... pardon?"

Satsuki turned her head, looking at Sakura with a blank expression. "What is it?" she asked.

"Well," Sakura said, holding a bag to her side rigidly. "I was thinking... we could have lunch? Y'know, since we're gonna be on a team and all!" She scratched the side of her face.

Satsuki faced forward again, and then she turned her whole body to face Sakura. She closed her eyes, as though in exasperation.

Sakura had very honestly expected her to at least say something.

With nothing more than a brush of arms, Satsuki walked straight past Sakura and back the way she'd came.

* * *

"Sakura-chan! Do you want to sit together for lunch-"

"No! Get out of my way, idiot!"

And Sakura walked straight past Naruto and back the way she'd came.

Naruto saw the brief but certain glint of tears in her eyes.

* * *

"Yo."

Satsuki didn't say anything, not even when Naruto slumped down next to her. She reached for a riceball.

"Why did you make Sakura-chan cry?" Naruto said. The words felt weak and empty to her; like Naruto didn't really care at all.

Satsuki didn't look at him. "I didn't say anything to her."

Naruto believed her – she was telling the truth - and she ate beside him in silence. His stomach rumbled, and he turned to her, laughing sheepishly and rubbing the back of his head-

She offered a riceball with an outheld hand. "Here."

Naruto took it delightedly, smiling and thanking her, and took a bite-

"Eurgh! The hell's _that?!_"

"Not ramen."

"It's disgusting!"

"I didn't prepare it for _you._"

"You _like_ that?!"

Later, Naruto returned home, and Satsuki went shopping.

* * *

"Good afternoon, Mizuki-sensei..."

He made himself as comfortable as he could amongst a field of buried dead, but Naruto had always been scared of ghosts. His hand brushed against the cold marble of a grave, and he pulled it back quick.

Naruto bit his lip.

"I... climbed over the gate to get here. Apparently the graveyard closes at four. But, no-one'll care! I've done worse, right, Mizuki-sensei?"

Naruto wanted to talk to him.

_'You shouldn't have! How did the assignments go?'_

"I... like my new team, I think. Sakura-chan's on a team with me! It's like a dream come true!"

_'Being a ninja isn't a joke! You can't be messing around with the girl you like. At least it's not someone you don't like, though, right?'_

Naruto rolled his eyes and groaned, remembering Satsuki. "But I do have Satsuki on my team. She's... alright, though. Recently."

_'That's good. I'm sure things could have gone worse, right? You guys used to argue like cat and dog, but you could've gotten put with Takashi!'_

"She... Satsuki's really... I don't know, sensei. She can be mean, but she even offered me some of her lunch today. I forgot mine."

_ 'Are you hungry?'_

In his mind's eye, Mizuki smiled.

"So... everything's fine, I guess..."

_'Let's go out for ramen. My treat!'_

With that, Naruto let hot tears spill out.

_'I want to see you again... Mizuki-sensei...!'_

* * *

The next day, Naruto arrived quietly, but amongst the chatter of students, it wasn't particularly noticeable.

One by one, jounin came by to pick up their new genin teams; after an hour, Iruka checked the roster ("-your jounin sensei is... oh.") and made an excuse to leave soon after. Two hours later, they were still waiting. Naruto had taken to napping on the desk, and Satsuki could tell at a glance that Sakura was agitated.

Soon, the sliding door pulled open, and a man with grey hair and one quarter of visible face peaked through.

"Yo."

"Yo?" Sakura seethed, hands on her hips. "You're three hours late!"

"Oh. I simply got lost on the road of life..."

Satsuki raised an eyebrow.

Sakura gritted her teeth.

Naruto had a spontaneous sleeping spasm. He kicked the desk, before falling back into a comfortable position atop the desk.

The man brought his hand to his chin. "My first impression of you all..."

"...well, you're all very aggressive. Except the sleeping one. Meet me on the roof in five minutes."

* * *

He was late again.

Still stretching, Naruto blinked when Kakashi finally arrived. "Late again? How did you get lost on your way to the roof?"

Kakashi smiled. "A black cat crossed my path, so I had to take the long way around."

Naruto nodded absent-mindedly, and Sakura found that proof enough that the boy was in a daze. She wondered what the long way around could even be.

Their sensei coughed, and smiled. "So, introduce yourselves! Your likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams... that kind of thing." His expression was uncomfortably cheerful.

"What about you?" Satsuki said bluntly.

"Hm?"

"We don't know anything about you," she said again.

Kakashi nodded in understanding, his smile sympathetic beneath the cotton of his mask. "Yes, yes, of course. Well, I'm Hatake Kakashi. I have many likes and dislikes... I don't have a dream. I have a few hobbies..."

Naruto folded his arms. "We only found out your name!"

Kakashi smiled. "You can go first," he said.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" he said, grinning widely. "I like ramen! I don't like the three minutes it takes for the ramen to cook! My hobbies... I like... gardening, I guess... and my dream, is..."

Mizuki's voice rang in his head.

_ '-this village is just holding you back! I would have escaped alone... but I don't want you to stay here, Naruto. All these years of abuse and terror... don't you want to escape?'_

Naruto cast his gaze to the ground, eyes unseeing.

_'Do I really... want to be Hokage...?'_

Satsuki's eyes widened, and her breath caught in her throat. She schooled her expression back into one of nonchalance.

"To be Hokage."

Naruto looked up, blinking in surprise.

Satsuki said it again. "To be Hokage." She flicked her gaze towards him. "That's what you're always going on about, isn't it? Being Hokage."

Naruto took a deep breath, laughing awkwardly. "Yeah," he said, his cheerful demeanour reasserting itself. "I suppose. I want to be the best Hokage there ever was! Better than any that came before!"

But even then, the lapse in personality had put Satsuki on edge, and the steeple of her hands tightened.

"I see," Kakashi said. "And you next." His finger motioned towards Sakura, and she blushed, smiling.

"I'm Haruno Sakura! I like dango... and I don't like Naruto! My hobbies are... reading, and my dream is..."

_'To be Satsuki's friend?' _she thought. _'That sounds pathetic...'_

She coughed, and smiled confidently. "My dream is to be a kunoichi worthy of Satsuki-san's acknowledgement!"

Sakura internally fist pumped._ 'SHANNARO! Did that sound cool, or what?!'_

Satsuki, however, did not even blink at the declaration.

"Do we only like food, here?" Kakashi pondered, before nodding at Satsuki. "And now you."

Satsuki closed her eyes, and Naruto could only take the fierce coldness of her face as a sign of rage.

"I'm Uchiha Satsuki. I have plenty of dislikes. I don't particularly like anything-"

"Tomatoes," Naruto said.

Kakashi looked at Naruto with a blank look, and the boy rubbed the back of his head with an awkward grin.

"I mean! You like tomatoes, right? You don't really eat anything else!"

Satsuki bristled at the comment, and continued unhindered.

"I don't have any hobbies. I don't have a dream- it's an ambition."

Kakashi felt his heart go cold. _'Just as expected...'_

"To kill a certain man, and restore my clan."

Naruto and Sakura in turn both looked at Satsuki with a horrified awe.

_'To kill...?!' _Sakura thought._ 'That's... that's so much more mature than what I said, but...'_

_'To kill someone!? Jeez! I was right! Satsuki is totally off her cake!'_

Kakashi nodded. "I see." And then he turned back to the group, smiling. "You're... a diverse group. You're the first two-thirds female cell I've seen in a long time, you know! But... will you be prepared for the test?"

His expression was mock-contemplative, and Satsuki felt anger welling in her chest.

Naruto's heart sank to the pit of his stomach, but he tried to hold up his smile. "Wh...What test?"

His teacher smiled. "The one that sends back two-thirds of the passing students! Did you not hear?"

"Wh-What?! No way!" Sakura declared, stumbling over her words in her horror. _'No! There can't be..! I can't fail now!'_

"I'm sure there is. You guys mustn't be in the information loop, you know? But! I'll give you some exclusive information!"

Naruto and Sakura leaned forward, completely at attention. Satsuki didn't even look at the man, but her posture was as alert as ever.

Kakashi leaned forward, speaking in a happy whisper.

"No one's ever passed my test! Training Grounds, at five tomorrow!"

"In the _morning?!_"

"When else?" Kakashi's smile was making Naruto fear for his life.

"And don't eat breakfast! Or... you'll throw up!"

* * *

Satsuki and Naruto walked home together, their homes on roughly the same route. Naruto didn't know if Sakura's was, too, but her presence was welcome to him anyway.

"Oh! Just a minute, okay? I need to go buy some incense!"

Sakura blinked. _'Has someone died...? Maybe that was why he wasn't so annoying today...'_

Naruto held a finger up for them to wait, and hurried into a shop. Satsuki leaned against a wall, looking blankly ahead, and Sakura leaned identically next to her.

After a moment's silence, Sakura couldn't take it. "How do you put up with him?"

"Hm?" Satsuki turned her head to Sakura.

"Naruto," Sakura said. "I can't _stand_ him! How do you put up with him? He's so annoying!"

She felt almost guilty for the outburst, and she hurried to correct herself, laughing awkwardly. "Well, I mean... we're gonna have to be on a team for a long time, so..."

Satsuki looked as though she hadn't heard Sakura, staring straight forward. Just as Sakura was about to pretend she hadn't said anything at all, the Uchiha responded.

"Yeah. He_ is_ annoying."

Sakura blinked at the unexpected response, then waited for her to continue.

She didn't.

_ 'Well... _that_ didn't answer anything.'_

"-oi! Let's go home now, sorry to keep you guys waiting!"

Naruto bounded towards them, grinning widely with a packet of incense in hand.

They walked for a short while, crossing the main market with little conversation at all. Naruto was speaking, but it was more like background noise to Sakura than anything at all.

His stomach rumbled loudly, and Satsuki rolled her eyes.

Naruto groaned, rubbing his belly. "Yeah... sorry. I don't think I can afford anything right now anyway..."-he felt for his wallet forlornly-"so let's just go home."

They walked for a moment, before Sakura heard the rustle of clothing and saw something green pass from Satsuki's hand to Naruto. It almost hit him in the head, and the catch was clumsy.

"Oi! That almost_ hit_ me, you assho-"

"Just eat it."

"Eh?"

Naruto took a look at the green ball in his hand; it was an apple, spherical and juicy looking. He'd always been of the opinion that apples were one of the more tolerable fruits. He looked at Satsuki, and smiled widely.

"Thanks!"

Sakura frowned. _'If he annoys her too, why is she so... strangely nice to him...?'_

Naruto smiled harder when he remembered that Satsuki didn't eat apples.

As they reached a corner, the three of them split off into separate roads.

"Satsuki-san... see you tomorrow, right? Good luck!" Sakura smiled, waving enthusiastically.

Satsuki nodded, giving Naruto a nod in turn as she turned down her street and steadily walked away.

"Bye, Sakura-chan! I hope we pass this test tomorrow!"

Naruto hadn't expected anything like what he got.

"Yeah," Sakura smiled, bowing politely. "Good luck, Naruto. We'll have fun being on a team together if we pass this test, so... let's try our best!"

His heart skipped a beat, and he blushed. "Hah... yeah! See you, Sakura-chan!"

And with that, Naruto left for the graveyard with a smile so wide it hurt his cheeks.

* * *

"Mizuki-sensei..."

_ 'How did everything go?'_

"We're... gonna have to do a test to actually become genin. It sounds hard, and I'm not sure I can do it, but..."

Naruto took a deep breath. "I'm not sure about Sakura-chan yet, but... Satsuki..."

_ 'See? I told you!'_

"Satsuki's..." Naruto paused, smiling. "Satsuki's... not as bad as I thought she was. Maybe... maybe we can even be friends."

He lit the incense, the thin smoke pirouetting upwards. The smell permeated through the natural smell of the graveyard like poison in a glass of sake.

Naruto imagined the rotting corpse below him, how stupid it was that he imagined the man speaking to him now. But it was therapeutic, made him feel better... that was what Mizuki would have wanted, surely.

(Naruto tried to convince himself.)

"I'm not gonna come here so much after today. I'll come... talk to you for a bit sometimes, but... you can probably see what I'm doing anyways, you know? I'm probably wasting my time. So... wish me luck, Mizuki-sensei!"

Before he left, Naruto buried the bitten down apple core in the ground above Mizuki's grave.

"A... sign of my first friendship... and an offering to you, I guess."

He took a deep breath, leaving the graveyard with his eyes facing straight forward. Naruto dared not look at the countless headstones of people he would never meet.

The gates were open as he left, this time.

"See ya, Mizuki-sensei."

A tuft of paper white dandelions waved him goodbye.

* * *

**A/N: Sometimes I make myself a little sad, too.**

** And on that note, I thought I'd just throw it in: my good friend Ser Serendipity is writing a MASTERPIECE, so check that out! Now! It's called Not Sick and it'll truly throw your expectations overboard.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: A little late, but not too much. This chapter is kind of just here for plot consistency, and I don't like it too much, but the next chapter will be out much sooner than usual. Look forward to it!**

**As always, special thanks to my beta, Ekusukallybaa, who makes this sufferable. Apparently that's not a word, but insufferable is. That's stupid.  
Anyway, his writing is absolutely fantastic. Check it out. All of it.**

* * *

_Uzumaki_

* * *

_Chapter 5_

* * *

The morning was cold, and Satsuki felt on the verge of vomiting.

They all arrived at the Training Grounds simultaneously, sans Kakashi.

"Good morning, Satsuki-san," Sakura said, bags under her eyes. Her smile resembled the forced grin of a corpse, but Satsuki nodded at her anyway.

"Ugh..." Naruto said, groaning and sitting down against his bag. "If Kakashi is late again today...!"

Satsuki hoped he wouldn't be.

He was.

Three hours later, Kakashi arrived with an entirely disinterested expression. He waved cheerfully. "Yo."

Satsuki supposed she'd be cheerful if she'd had three hours more sleep, too.

"You're late!" Naruto and Sakura shouted in unison, identical expressions of rage on their faces.

Kakashi shrugged, smiling and putting his hands up as though to admit defeat. "I had to run around the village fifteen times to defeat a green beast."

"_Liar!_"

* * *

Kakashi dangled two bells in front of them, and they jingled.

"These," he said, "are your ticket to being a shinobi."

He tied them to his belt. "Take them from me, and you get to become a ninja. Don't? And you get sent back to the academy. And you get to be tied to a log while I eat food." Kakashi smiled. "I hope you ate breakfast."

Naruto stomped his feet, furious. "But you told us not to eat any!"

Satsuki felt awfully stupid for having listened. Her hand wandered subconsciously to her stomach.

"Well, maybe you three cute genin ought to think for yourselves," Kakashi said. He reached for the timer, winding a knob at the back and pressing down on the top. "You have until noon. Fight me like you intend to kill me, or you'll do no damage at all, I assure you."

"But, sensei..." Sakura said, looking nervous. "What if we hurt you?"

Kakashi just laughed at her, and Satsuki saw Naruto tense and run forward like a hare.

"As if I'm gonna lose out on being a ninja now!"

And with a roar, Naruto lunged forward, kunai clutched in one hand-

And with a blink, Kakashi had that very same kunai pointed at the back of Naruto's very own neck. He smiled.

"I haven't even said go yet."

Satsuki felt herself go cold.

"But you two would do well to take from Naruto's example... come at me with the intent to kill. Now..."

Kakashi released Naruto's hand from his grip, and walked into the centre of the clearing.

"Go."

Within a millisecond, Sakura and Satsuki had hidden within the trees, but Kakashi looked entirely unconcerned. Naruto was bemused.

"Aren't you... I dunno, gonna chase after them?"

The man shrugged, and reached into his pouch. Naruto steadied himself, eyeing his bag carefully as he rooted through it.

_'Kunai... shuriken... or something else... I don't know what to expect from this guy...!'_

With a sleek motion, Kakashi pulled out a small orange book.

Naruto blinked.

"Wait. _What?_ You're_ reading!?_"

Kakashi didn't look up.

"Why are you _reading!?_"

He still didn't look up, but turned a page. "To find out what happens, of course."

Naruto clenched his fists.

_'Is this guy... taking me that lightly?' _he thought, but he grinned, and formed a handsign. From the branches, Satsuki frowned.

_'What is Naruto doing?'_

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

The clearing became filled with Narutos, and Satsuki blinked. '_I suppose... if they're just illusions...'_

"Kage Bunshin," Kakashi mused, and his tone sounded a tad surprised. "And so many. How reckless... but I'm impressed. Solid clones."

With a simultaneous war-cry, the Narutos drove forward, and at that moment Satsuki finally understood there was no way she could win against this man.

Naruto was not as graceful or strategic as Satsuki, though he was more powerful; but strategy and grace weren't necessary when there were fifty of you.

Kakashi, with one arm occupied and his eyes glued firmly to the book, span and kicked and blocked and wiped out each and every ninja that Naruto had to offer, and with a final punch to the gut he sent the original Naruto flying.

_'This guy, even without looking, can do that...?! We've... we've got no chance...!' _Sakura thought, eyes wide.

After a moment of looking at Naruto, leaning against the tree to her right, Satsuki closed her eyes. This plan was the stupidest she'd had yet. '_He must be having an influence on me...'_ she thought tiredly.

"Naruto," she whispered. His head jerked up to see her in the branches.

"What?" he said loudly, and Satsuki resisted the urge to put her head in her hands.

_'Idiot...'_ she cringed, but flicked her head in order to motion Naruto up into the trees. Thankfully, the boy seemed to get it, but Satsuki didn't stick around to find out.

_'Kakashi probably knows where I am now... I've gotta move fast.'_

She stopped on a distant branch, and turned to Naruto.

"There's no way we're going to beat him," she said in a low voice. "We've got to team up."

"Are you kidding? There's only two bells! If we team up, it won't be fair on Sakura-chan!"

Now, _that_ was true. Satsuki bit her lip, but her expression was unmoved. "This whole thing isn't fair. He's a jounin, and we'll only win together."

"You can't just leave her out." Naruto pouted and folded his arms.

"Then she can team up with us too."

"There are only_ two _bells, bastard!" Naruto emphasised this point by holding up two fingers.

"Then we'll pick at the end who gets them," Satsuki said, gritting her teeth.

Naruto looked torn. "We'll just end up arguing! It won't be fair. Someone who tried hard might not get one..."

"It's better than _no-one_ getting a bell!"

"I can hear you two, you know."

Naruto fell out of the tree, and Satsuki bent over backwards to avoid the swipe of Kakashi's arm. She propelled herself off a branch with a push of her arms, and landed in the clearing beside Naruto.

"You find Sakura, and I'll try to hold him off for a while."

Satsuki left no room for argument, and she was grateful when Naruto gave her a nod before jumping into the trees. _'Thank God, he can at least listen to instructions...'_

"_Sakura-chaaaaan!_ Where are you hiding?"

Satsuki almost choked on her own saliva.

Kakashi approached Satsuki with a nonchalant expression.

"You know teaming up is against the rules," he said after a long pause.

"You never said so."

Kakashi shrugged. "I suppose you're right." He snapped his book shut, and tucked it into his pouch. "But I'm eager to see the Uchiha's famous Gliding Edge taijutsu style. Don't let me down."

_ 'How did he...?!'_

As eager as she was to fight someone worthy fighting, Satsuki was beginning to have her doubts. If he already knew of her Gliding Edge style...

"I've seen it myself," Kakashi said. "But to fight it must be quite a different experience. And as the last female Uchiha, you must be the last person in the world who knows it."

_'Last female Uchiha,'_ she thought._ 'Last Uchiha altogether... except for Itachi.'_

Satsuki didn't say anything, expression darkening as she settled into the first stance of the Gliding Edge with a scowl. Kakashi didn't even come towards her.

She kept her eyes firmly on him. _'This isn't designed for offence, but... if he won't come to me...'_

With a graceful spin of her body, she launched a barrage of shuriken at Kakashi. The man jumped easily over them, and Satsuki quickly launched another, jumping backwards and bouncing off of her hands onto a branch. She glared, and threw herself through the air with her arms at her sides.

Kakashi's eyes widened at the direct attack, but he caught her by her shoulders.

_'Hah.' _Satsuki smirked.

She hooked her leg around the back of his neck, and clamped around his throat tightly, bending over backwards to touch the bells-

Kakashi pushed his fingers into a pressure point at the back of Satsuki's thigh, and threw her off of him. She skidded through the dust, narrowing her eyes.

He didn't look the slightest bit fazed.

Satsuki stood straight and bent her back; she poised one leg slightly outwards on the ground, and with every ounce of grace she had in her body, she began to spin.

After a few moments, the clearing was filled with a thick coat of dust.

_'Naruto... you'd better know what you're doing!'_

"Over here!"

Kakashi was very suddenly barraged with a mass of Narutos, dog-piling him until it became apparent that they were hugging a log.

"Even working together, you three really aren't cutting it," Kakashi said, reaching for his book.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"

And out of the dust, came an immense fireball.

Naruto blinked, and jumped back into the trees, and Kakashi jumped to the side of the fireball, the edge of the flames skimming his pants. He made some sort of affirmative noise at the assault, but looked around for a moment.

"Where is Saku-"

He very suddenly became aware of the smell of burning paper, and the floor beneath him exploded.

Naruto cheered loudly, until the chunks of burnt wood hit the floor, and Sakura, Satsuki and Naruto found themselves being tightly bound together by a length of ninja wire.

"Wha-!"

They hit each other with a monstrous amount of force, and collapsed to the ground. Kakashi walked over, dusting off his pants.

"You three are pathetic," he said, and his tone was so cold that Satsuki could feel Naruto stiffen against her back. "That fireball set off the exploding tags in the ground. I'd be impressed... but you haven't even managed to land a scratch on me."

He knelt down in front of them. "I won't send you back to the academy. You three..."

For a split second, the three relaxed-

"...should give up on being ninja!"

Naruto's outcry came first. "_What?!_"

"You three lack any talent whatsoever," Kakashi said, voice cold. "Sakura took no part in whatever plan you executed, and you three were completely uncoordinated. Satsuki was the only one who showed any potential, but even she met her downfall by not asking Sakura for help."

Kakashi looked at them, and spoke with a harsh tone. "You are assigned as a three-man cell for a reason. This exercise was about teamwork from the _beginning_."

"Teamwork?" Sakura said. "But you only have _two_ bells!"

Kakashi turned his gaze to her. "With the intention of splitting you three up. If any of you had bothered to put the team first, you'd have succeeded!"

Sakura's jaw closed.

"But Kakashi-sensei, you don't get it!" Naruto said angrily. "Sakura-chan came up with that plan, and she implanted those exploding tags in the ground when Satsuki created that dust cloud!"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Even a tactician needs basic fighting skills, and Sakura has none."

After some awkward movements, Sakura found herself tied against the post.

Their teacher walked towards the strange, carved gem in the middle of the Training Grounds. "Written on this stone, are the names of heroes." Kakashi had his hands in his pockets.

Naruto grinned, and nodded. "Heroes! Now that's cool. What kinda heroes, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Dead ones."

Naruto quieted. The three of them shied away from looking at Kakashi's back, uncomfortable weights settling in their stomachs.

"On this stone are the names of my closest friends," he said, reaching a finger out to trace the engravings.

There was a long silence, and for a moment, Satsuki felt a twinge of pity for the man. He turned around.

"I've decided to give you three one last chance," Kakashi said. "In the afternoon, you will have three hours to get the bells from me. But first, Naruto and Satsuki eat lunch. Sakura doesn't get any. Feed her, and face disqualification."

Sakura's face dropped.

Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves, and Naruto looked left, right, and behind before holding his lunchbox out to Sakura.

She blinked, before panicking. "Naruto, you can't do that! Kakashi-sensei said we couldn't!"

"So what?" Satsuki intercepted. "He's not around. If you don't eat something, you won't be any good."

"Bu-"

"_C'mon_," Naruto said. "We've gotta be quick or he'll get back here."

Sakura pushed down a smile. _'Even Satsuki is helping me...!'_

"My hands are kinda..."

"I'll feed you, Sakura-chan!"

"Nuh-uh! No way!"

Satsuki ended up feeding her.

There was a bang and a swirl of smoke-

"You guys-"

The three of them reeled back.

"-pass!"

* * *

**A/N: How do you like your eggs in the morning?**

**Tell me in a review.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sometimes, I get scared when people follow my story but don't favourite it. I know they're watching me and waiting for me to slip up. Laughing at me.**

**Also, late. Reaaallly late. Yeah. Sorry... I was in a tropical country. Hope you guys like the chapter all the same!**

**WARNING. I will probably not be uploading consistently for a while. My last exam is on the 2nd of June. When I can, I will write chapters, and then after a certain point, I'll upload them consistently again, with (hopefully!) a nice backlog of chapters to rely on. This is to make time for my beta, too.**

**Speaking of my beta! Wonderful, wonderful ****Ekusukallybaa****, my beta, has written a story called "****Actions and Words**"**. Check it out. It's fantastic.**

**This is getting too long. Last but not least, ****A Dream of Winter** **by ****Zenthisoror** **is absolutely fantastic. Read it. It makes me wish Kishimoto had written Sasuke better.**

* * *

_Uzumaki_

* * *

_Chapter 6_

* * *

"I'm sick of these stupid D-rank missions! I want a C-rank!"

Iruka sighed. "Naruto-"

The week had been filled with an array of mediocre missions, and Satsuki's ears rang from Naruto's complaints. She was beginning to worry about the effects on her hearing.

"No! No more getting the Daimyo's wife's cat! I don't wanna!"

"Naruto-" Iruka said, expression irritated.

"Well," the Hokage said. "Okay."

Team 7 blinked.

"We just received a C-rank, actually."

"What, like protecting a beautiful princess!? Or-"

The Hokage coughed. "Tazuna-san..."

A short man with a straw hat peered through the door, face red with drink.

"He's a bridge builder from the Land of Waves," the Hokage said. "You're required to take him back, and protect him from bandits and the like."

"What, so I'm being taken by a couple of princesses and a midget?" the bridge builder hiccuped, sake in hand with a strange look at the Hokage. "Can these kids really protect me?"

Naruto began howling incoherently at the man, Kakashi holding him by his head.

"Are these ninja insufficient, Tazuna-san?" the Hokage asked, and it wasn't more a question than a challenge. Tazuna gulped.

"In any case," Kakashi said, "I am coming as well. So don't worry."

Tazuna grumbled, tipping his hat.

* * *

The day was blisteringly hot, and Naruto's attitude was as exhausting as ever. For some reason, every single bush was immensely interesting to him.

Satsuki felt uneasy. Very, very uneasy.

She couldn't really pinpoint why, either. The fear was stupid and childish, and she crushed it.

"Satsuki-san?"

She jumped.

"Uh... Satsuki-san?" Sakura said, hands behind her back. "Have you ever left Konoha before?"

Satsuki paused, and nodded.

"Oh," Sakura said, laughing awkwardly. "I haven't... but its not that different here. Just lots of trees, I guess..."

Satsuki was quiet, hands tucked in her pockets. "I was young," she said. "I can't remember it."

"Oh..."

They walked in silence, the air heavy.

"I just wanted to say thank you," Sakura blurted out.

Satsuki raised an eyebrow, and the other girl giggled.

"Well..." Sakura began. "I wouldn't have passed the test if you hadn't had the idea to work together... so I kinda owe it to you..."

"Naruto was the one who made us all work together," Satsuki said. "I wouldn't have asked you, otherwise."

Sakura blinked, and her jaw opened and closed like a fish. After a moment, she blushed and looked at her feet.

"A-Ah... I guess that figures," Sakura said, shuffling her bag awkwardly on her shoulders. "He probably wanted to ask me on a date, or something..."

"It was nice of him."

Sakura looked up, confused. "Eh?"

Satsuki didn't look at her. "Naruto refused the opportunity to get a bell so you could have a chance at getting one."

The road looked so long to her; all she could see was the very, very distant curve of the path ahead.

"Ugh..." Sakura said, and Satsuki twitched. "I mean... its nice and all, but I just wish Naruto would take a hint."

Satsuki finally looked Sakura in the eyes, and said, "I wish you would, too."

And Sakura was left staring at Satsuki's back with a gobsmacked expression on her face.

* * *

"Kakashi-sensei-!"

Sakura froze, and so did Naruto, eyes widening at the two black figures, and in the very same moment, Satsuki lunged.

The two encircled them, running forward with enraged expressions, and Satsuki jumped, graceful and precise as she kicked them simultaneously. With a flick of her wrist, she nailed the chains between them to the tree.

"But what about Kakashi-sense-"

"Yo."

Satsuki could have rolled her eyes.

"Eh?! But- but you-" Naruto stuttered, jaw slack, until he turned to see Kakashi's bloody remains – only to find chunks of wood scattered across the clearing.

Kakashi shrugged. "I was testing how you would react in a dangerous situation. These two men were the Demon Brothers... high level ninja."

Tazuna stiffened beside Sakura.

Their teacher turned a stern eye to the tipsy man, and he shaded his eyes with his hat.

"Tazuna-san," Kakashi said, "Why would high level ninja be after you? You reported this mission as a C-rank. Nothing but bandits at most."

"I..." Tazuna took a shaky breath. "Our country is small. We have no shinobi force. And the ocean trade... our only trade, as an island, is being monopolised by a fearful man." His voice lowered, and his shoulders hunched. "Gatou."

Kakashi blinked.

"Gatou? Kakashi-sensei, who's Gatou?" Naruto said.

"A big-name businessman. And you're saying he's sucking the money out of your country?"

Tazuna nodded. "I... I couldn't afford anything more than C-rank. But I am building the bridge that will end Gatou's reign of tyranny... he fears it. I am _bound_ to be assassinated if you leave now...!"

Naruto struggled to keep his shaking under control.

'_That... those two ninja... they were- I couldn't even move, but Satsuki just... took them out all on her own!'_

He looked at her. Her expression was casual, and she caught his gaze, smirking.

"Hurt, scaredy-cat?"

Naruto gritted his teeth, glaring angrily at her, before Kakashi caught his attention.

"Naruto, your cut will have to be treated in the village. Those blades they used were dipped in poison," he said. "We will have to turn back either way."

The boy looked at his team, and gritted his teeth. _'So, is that it...? I'm holding everyone back...? Like hell...!'_

Naruto plunged a kunai into his hand.

"I swear by this cut on my hand," he said, "that I won't hold anyone back, and that I won't give up. And I never go back on my word...!"

Satsuki suppressed a smile.

"Good idea, but now you're probably going to bleed to death."

"Eh?! Really?!" Naruto howled, clutching his hand.

Satsuki twitched.

'_Nope. He's definitely still an idiot...'_

* * *

The journey continued uneventfully but anxiously all at once; Kakashi seemed slightly on edge, as did Sakura and Tazuna. But Naruto, predictably, had taken Satsuki's victory as an insult to him, and was now making it his duty to protect them.

Or to seem cool.

As Naruto glared at Satsuki and attacked small rabbits, she was beginning to think the latter was the case.

"Get down!"

A massive blade swung above their heads and embedded itself in a tree within an instant, and Satsuki's blood ran cold as the man stood on its hilt met her gaze.

* * *

"We're going to be climbing trees."

"Kakashi-sensei, I know how to climb a tree!"

"Ah..." Kakashi put on a false-perplexed expression. "But can you do it without using your hands?"

Kakashi hauled himself up the tree, crutches and all, and Naruto fist-pumped ecstatically, bouncing on the heels on his feet.

"_Yes! _Something I can _finally _do!"

And with a fair degree of astonishment, Satsuki watched as Naruto ran up the tree, hands on his hips as he grinned down at her.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Well done, Naruto."

_'Where did he learn something like that...?'_

Their teacher looked down at them, walking down the tree. "As you can see, Naruto already understands this exercise. By infusing chakra into your feet, you stick your feet to the tree."

Satsuki lifted her foot to the tree, and found herself hopping to regain balance as she was repelled from the bark.

"Too much, and you're thrown away from the bark... too little, and you won't stick. It may take you a while to get the hang of it-"

"Sensei!"

As Sakura waved from her perch upon a branch, Satsuki finally felt the crushingly embarrassing feeling of being the dead last.

* * *

The sun beat down on Satsuki like her mother's stern voice had when she was young, and she awoke groggily.

"Are you alright?"

She jerked away, blinking at the strange girl who had such a soft expression. Worry knotted itself on the girl's eyebrows, and she asked Satsuki again. "Miss, are you alright?"

Satsuki blinked, forcing her vision to focus, before nodding dumbly.

The girl smiled. "I'm glad. But why would you sleep in a place like this?"

Satsuki yawned, looking around at the trees and the warm grass beneath her. '_Ah. I fell asleep after all that training...'_

She sat up, rolling the kinks out of her shoulders and neck.

"I was training."

The girl smiled. "Ah... are you a shinobi?"

Satsuki nodded, taking note of her kimono, and of the woven basket beside her. The girl noticed her wandering gaze, and smiled.

"I was here to collect herbs. A loved one is sick... these herbs relieve fever. Why are you training, then?"

The Uchiha thinned her lips. The sun was blinding.

"To get stronger."

The girl beside him nodded.

"But for what purpose do you become stronger?" Her head tilted. "Is there anyone who is precious to you?"

Satsuki blinked, turning to the girl sat beside her.

"Precious?"

The girl turned, hair brushing the edges of her face. "Someone to protect."

Satsuki scoffed, and the other girl's face changed a little. "Do you not have anyone like that, then?"

"I don't _want_ anyone like that," Satsuki said, speaking as though the words stung her lips.

Now, the girl wasn't saying anything at all, and Satsuki found herself speaking instead.

"My only purpose is to avenge the deaths of my family. Nothing else."

For a moment, it seemed as though Satsuki's coldness had silenced the girl, until she sighed and looked at Satsuki with eyes that stirred emotion in her.

It was almost as though she understood.

"How sad."

_'Sad...?'_

"Like you'd know," Satsuki spat.

The girl turned her sad – her sad, sad gaze – away from Satsuki. "I suppose not. But death is always sad." The girl's eyes closed. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Satsuki couldn't bear to look at her.

"It was a long time ago," she said.

The girl said nothing, staring at her knees, until she broke the silence. "I lost my family at a young age," she said. "I was lost for a long time. I had no purpose... a street urchin, simply trying to eat and drink.

"I found someone... I began to love someone. We are... we are strongest when we protect those precious to us."

"Do you truly have no one?"

"They would just be a liability," Satsuki said, anger bubbling in her voice like an unattended stove.

"Why?"

"Because I have an ambition, and I can't let anyone get in my way. I have to kill my brother – no matter what." Satsuki resisted the urge to attack the girl. She was seething.

The girl closed her eyes. "That isn't true. With others, you are truly strong."

"He told me to hate him, to attain power to kill him... and I will. Others will just hold me back."

"If he had done such an evil to you, why would you still listen to him?"

Satsuki couldn't help but admire the softness of the girl's voice, even as she spewed atrocities.

"Do you still value what he has to say, as a brother?"

"Is it perhaps, that you maybe still love him? Despite his crimes?" the girl asked, and her face was the picture of innocence, but all Satsuki could see was red.

She held back her fists.

"I will kill Itachi. _You_," Satsuki said, the words tasting of poison, "could never understand."

She stood up, unsteady on her feet, and turned to leave the wood.

"Oi! Satsuki!" Naruto's orange tinge lit up the trees like a wildfire. "Who's the pretty girl you were talkin' to? And where've you _been_ all night?"

"Training."

"Oh-"

"And sir," the girl called after them, "I'm a boy."

"W-_What?!_"

* * *

_'That's it... if Naruto attacks from the outside...!'_

"Satsuki!"

Satsuki twitched, and Naruto grinned.

"I came in here to save you!"

After a moments searching, Satsuki could find no words.

_'Fucking idiot...!'_

"You... You...!" Satsuki said, mouth opening and closing. "You're such an idiot! Why didn't you stay _outside?!_"

"Hey! I was just trying to help!" Naruto huffed, and Satsuki took a deep breath.

_'I can't kill him. I can't kill him.' _Satsuki directed her attention to the glinting ice mirrors about them_. 'I've gotta take care of this guy first...!'_

"You two will die here."

The glow of the mirrors blinded Satsuki, and she was riddled with senbon and thrown to the ground beside Naruto. Every movement burned, and Satsuki's body gave out beneath her weight.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

"Stop it-!" Satsuki cried.

The clones leapt, and in the same instant, disappeared. Naruto flew back with an agonised cry, and Satsuki winced.

_'There's... there's no way we can keep this up...!'_ she thought, looking at the icy reflections of Haku.

"Ugh... you think you're so great..." Naruto groaned, sitting up, senbon pointing out of his shoulder. "I won't lose here! I... I have a dream! To become Hokage and be acknowledged by my village, and I won't die before I see it!"

Satsuki watched Naruto stand up with a strange sort of awe.

"I too, have a dream," said the masked reflection. "I must make my precious one's dream come true. For that... I will become a shinobi, and kill off my emotions. Like you, I will die before my dream fails...!"

"I won't lose to you!" Naruto yelled. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

"Stop!"

In seconds, Naruto was thrown back down again, bloodier than ever this time, but Satsuki had seen – for a split second –

_'That movement...!'_

Naruto did it again, and Satsuki found it once more; a trail, the lithe form of Haku, moving from mirror to mirror at such a speed-

_'Even if I can see it... that's no help now...!'_

"Naruto," she breathed, her voice strained. "Can you do that once more?"

"Of course I can, bastard," Naruto said, smirking, but Satsuki saw how his posture faltered, his laboured breathing – _'He's too much of an idiot to admit it, but he won't last much longer...'_

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

And Satsuki swept her foot through the water, kicking it into the air, and – _'there it is!'_ - the water was repelled by Haku's movement, bouncing with every movement.

_'If I time it right-'_

Satsuki saw her enter a mirror, and lifted her fingers to her mouth.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"

Haku veered closely out of the way of the fireball, the edges of his clothes singed. The barrage of attacks stopped, and Naruto slumped to the floor.

"Shit," Satsuki said, turning to the boy. He was crumpled on the floor. "Naruto, get up!"

"Just... just a _sec_, asshole..."

Haku narrowed his eyes. _'I have to take this opportunity. That girl is tracking my movements... I can't afford to let this battle continue. It must end here...!'_

He launched a barrage of senbon at Satsuki, carefully aimed-

Satsuki picked up a senbon from beneath her, and carefully, awkwardly, and just barely deflected all of them. Her breathing was heavy.

"Naruto! Get up! I can't cover for you any longer!" she yelled. Naruto looked at her, but his gaze was hazy and unfocused.

"I will... bastard..." Naruto whispered, but in the same moment, he collapsed backwards.

Satsuki's heart sank.

"Your friend won't be getting back up," Haku said. "This fight is over for you."

_'She can't read my movements... surely. The human eye is not fast enough... this blow will be the last.'_

Satsuki picked Naruto up, and jumped out of the way.

_'How is she...?!' _Haku thought. _'But- is that...'_

And in both of Satsuki's eyes, lay Sharingan.

Satsuki smirked.

"Even with those eyes," Haku said, "how much longer can you manage like this? You're tiring quickly."

Satsuki glared, but her muscles were screaming. _'It's true... I can't keep this up...'_

"Like... _hell...!_"

Satsuki turned to see Naruto rising like a corpse from the dead. His grin was wide, but stained with blood.

"C'mon, Satsuki," Naruto said, and Satsuki could see- she could see how every limb quivered, how even his smile trembled with that pain. "We've gotta... take this guy out."

Haku's eyes narrowed, and he was ruthless with every barrage – Naruto was inadequate, even standing, the girl pulling him out the way, pushing him, even picking him up when need be- he was not a partner, but a liability, and now, Haku could see she was tiring-

Satsuki collapsed to one knee.

"Satsuki-!"

"Naruto," she breathed. "Naruto, I'm... I'm..."

She fell to her side, eyes shut.

"This is the end," Haku whispered, tone quiet and sad as it echoed through the domes. The senbon came, and Naruto saw-

_'No! _No- _not Satsuki!'_

* * *

With a grunt of pain, Satsuki hauled herself up.

Every movement pushed a senbon further into her, the wounds leaking with blood. Her vision was failing her, and her chakra was near gone, but after waiting a few dazed moments, her shaky double vision cleared.

She saw the injured, damaged body of Haku lying on the icy ground.

"You did it!" she breathed, eyes wide with disbelief and shock but pure elation, "Naru-"

The wet, half-gag half-cough noise reverberated off every mirror, the splash of blood thick and gruesome on the ground. Naruto's legs were shaking, but he turned back to Satsuki with a pained and slow movement. His smile stole away Satsuki's breath.

"You look... you look stupid..."

"You," she whispered. So many senbon protruded from his neck. Too many.

"You... protected me..."

Satsuki hated the colour orange more than anything. She could see it in every mirror.

"Ha..."

His voice was hoarse and sore with pain, but she could hear the laughter in it.

"You're awake... good..."

She was choking on every breath. Air stopped coming altogether.

He looked away from her. "I'm... he's not dead yet... you have to... you have to get up, bastard...! Stop being... being a wimp..."

His breathing was so heavy.

"I never asked you," she said. There was so much blood beneath Naruto. "I never _asked _you to do this! Why didn't you just... just stay the hell _out_ of this!? I... I _hate _you!"

All she could hear was her heartbeat, now, banging in the midst of mirrors and mist.

Naruto remembered the time when Satsuki lashed out at a cashier.

"_You know, it wasn't that important-"_

"_Shut up."_

"_-why'd you yell at that lady if you didn't even want any?!"_

"You just don't get it. I..." Naruto said, shaking on his feet. "I don't care... whether you asked..."

Naruto crumpled, and Satsuki found herself grabbing him by those senbon-ridden arms with her senbon-ridden own and they were both so hurt but why did he look like he was going to-

She held him tighter. His eyes were too blue, on a bridge filled with black ninja and red blood and white fog but never blue.

"Hokage..." he said. "I always wanted to be... Hokage, but I guess it isn't so... so important now, huh...?"

Satsuki had never seen him smile like that. It was a quiet smile.

"I thought..." he coughed. "I thought that was the most... important thing to me, but..."

_'Don't say things like that...!'_

Satsuki tried to speak, but all that came out was air that fell away like water and blood.

Blood gurgled from his throat like a spluttering fountain. A splatter of blood stained Satsuki's cheek.

"Promise me..." Naruto choked out, "Promise me you won't lose to this loser... and that you won't... die..."

Naruto's hand was reaching upwards.

"I promise," she whispered. "Promise me, too." Satsuki's voice was choked. "Promise me you won't die."

Naruto exhaled, smiling a bloody grin. "I promise. And Uzumaki Naruto... never goes back on his word."

Satsuki nodded, her breath hitching as his eyes shut and his body relaxed in her arms.

His smile slipped away from his lips as he died.

"_Naruto...!_"

She settled her head in the nook of his neck, breathing in shakily.

_'He still smells of... of fucking ramen and soil...!'_

She couldn't look at his face any more. Her eyes stung.

_'How can he... how could this...?!'_

"Naruto," Satsuki whispered, her vision clouding. "Naruto, you _liar...!_"

She laid Naruto's body gently on the ground. Satsuki tried her hardest not to look at that unsmiling face. Haku stood up.

"He ran into a trap for someone he cared about," the boy said. "He was... a true shinobi. He gave up his life for a friend. His death is a noble one."

"Naruto had a future," Satsuki said, kneeling and looking upwards, searching for a glimpse of the blue sky.

Satsuki gritted her teeth. "Naruto... Naruto had dreams...!"

"You took _everything _from him...! He wasn't just a shinobi, and he wasn't noble... he was _Uzumaki Naruto!_"

"I'm sorry," Haku said. "For the sake of my dream... one of us must die here. Your friend... made a noble sacrifice for you. If you die here... will you be able to face him in the afterlife?"

"Don't talk about him," Satsuki said, "Like you have the _right_."

It stank of blood.

"Don't talk about Naruto. Don't you _dare...!_"

She brought her gaze to the slits of the mask.

"You aren't going where Naruto's going," Satsuki said, and her mouth formed into a twisted smile. She walked.

Haku said nothing at all, taking up a twisted stance with a handful of senbon. He moved-

"But I promise you this-"

He ran forward, closer-

"-You _will _die today!"

And three tomoe swirled in each eye.

* * *

**A/N: Mayonnaise or tomato sauce with your chips? Or… fries…?**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: As always, an overwhelming chapter response. Even more than last time! I don't even know what to do with all of your kindnesses. I'm really sorry if I've not responded to a review - I have been completely overrun with work. I don't even know how I managed to write this chapter.**

**I hope you like this chapter. Lots of changes, lots of changes indeed. I hope things get a little bit more interesting in this chapter, since I think we're all a bit sick of rehashing canon…**

**A note: some people are wondering why I didn't give Satsuki the Mangekyou. And well, I suppose there are a couple reasons. First, and most important being, it would be fucking stupidly OP, and others being, does Satsuki really care about Naruto that much yet? Is this large enough a trauma to warrant the Mangekyou? And quite frankly, I don't think so. If Little Sasuke doesn't get the Mangekyou at the death of his whole clan, and only activates it, then it is safe to assume that any large trauma can cause an upgrade in the Sharingan. But I don't think it warrants the Mangekyou.**

**Actions and Words**** by my beta, ****Ekusukallybaa****, is looking wondrous. The Sasuke in it is fantastic. I want to marry him, a little bit. A lot. :'(**

**And, as for a rec… after reading this chapter, please go read ****Spring of the Plague**** by ****Zenthisoror****. I don't know whether I have recced it before. I dont care. It's the fucking best. It's finished, so you don't have to worry about waiting for stupid updates like you do with me. And you have my word that it is completely, and utterly, fantastic. And now…**

* * *

_Uzumaki_

* * *

_Chapter 7_

* * *

'_Those eyes… she's not the same as she was earlier. I can't take any more risks…'_

Haku held the senbon to eye-level, watching Satsuki carefully. The girl smirked.

"With these eyes," she said, "I can see your every movement. It's only a matter of time, now…"

The malice in each word sent a shiver up Haku's spine.

He switched from mirror to mirror, firing quickly, but she dodged faster; no, that wasn't it - she wasn't any faster. She was more efficient; every move Satsuki made was quicker, each route she made ideal, conserving her energy with every duck and jump and dodge.

Each single barrage of senbon Haku sent was evaded, and perfectly so.

_ 'My chakra… I'm too close to running out...'_

He stopped, eyeing her carefully through the mask. She smirked, breathing heavily.

"Don't you see?" she said, smirking. "Revenge… revenge has brought me this beautiful, _delicious_ power. And with it, I will _erase_ you!"

Haku's lips thinned.

"So you may believe…"

Haku ran once more, but this time, he observed more than he attacked.

And now he saw: Satsuki was _watching_ him.

She was running, diving, dodging, carefully avoiding her friend's corpse, but more than anything, she was _watching_ him. She was watching his every step, and she was_ calculating._

This instilled a great sense of fear into him.

_ 'Is she identifying how I fight? What exactly does she plan to do…?'_

Haku truly had no idea, until _it _happened.

There came a single, gross miscalculation; a situation he had noticed due to the subtlety with which she set it up.

He had allowed her to stray too far from him, too far indeed; minutely, with an expertly-executed maneuver, Satsuki had become far too near to one of the mirrors.

Haku had noticed, and dived across-

To which Satsuki sent a horridly forceful foot into his stomach at close range, sending him smashing into the mirror behind him.

Haku winced, sitting up. Blood gathered in his mouth, spilling down his chin.

"Futile," Haku said, and so it was; he melded back into the mirror quickly, with Satsuki within the dome all the same.

Even as everything seemed fine - even though the setback was minor, and he was quickly melding back into his ice mirrors - Haku felt a great, unerring sense of unease as Satsuki smirked. The turn of her lips was not a pleasant one.

She ran.

It took every ounce of Haku's effort to try and catch her, and he did not. Although Zabuza had told Haku, once or twice, of the sheer prestige of an Uchiha eye, it meant very little to him; even as he had observed Kakashi, it had not seemed so superior.

But now, Haku understood; the Sharingan, its precise eyesight and copying - were all efficiency. A wonderful, and fantastically useful efficiency.

She was not faster than Haku, oh no. But she was_ efficient._ There was no mistake in what she did, because there was no mistake in what she expected to come.

After ten minutes of horribly tense evasion and attack, Haku's chakra reached its limit. The mirrors collapsed.

* * *

_The weapon master's shop smelled strongly of sawdust and metal, and a bespectacled man sat at the desk with a welding mask that sat oddly over his glasses._

_ Satsuki frowned. Her mother was chatting animatedly with the man, but Satsuki could only find the situation immensely uncomfortable. She didn't like it here, and she made that obvious to her mother by tugging on the material on the elbow of her cardigan._

_ "Mother," she said, quietly. "Mother, are we done?"_

_ The week previous, Satsuki had been dragged to this shop, and forced to stretch her hands into awkward and strange positions whilst a man with a measuring tape wiggled his way around her hand. It had been unpleasant, and she was hoping something similar wouldn't happen, but the situation was risky. She needed to leave; Satsuki considered spontaneously bursting into tears, but although Mikoto was gentle, she had her doubts that her mother would excuse her for something so stupid._

_ "Satsuki, behave. The man has prepared something e__specially for you!"_

'Oh,' _Satsuki thought, regarding at the slightly tipsy looking man._ 'Oh no.'

_ The man nodded at her, and stood up, disappearing into the back of the shop. Satsuki's anticipation built for a moment, until he came out with a large wooden box, sealed with golden clasps. It was much cleaner than her current environment, and he set it down on his desk, turning it to Satsuki with a gentle smile._

_ "Go on," her mother urged kindly with a hand on her shoulder. "Open it."_

_ Satsuki undid the clasps awkwardly, and opened the box slowly. When she saw the contents, she__ couldn't help but gasp._

_ There lay two fans, carefully overlaying one another in a bed of soft, burgundy velvet. They were black, emblazoned with the Uchiha symbol, with untainted metal spokes of a clear, reflective silver._

_ She picked them up tentatively, and the carefully lacquered wooden outer cover settled into Satsuki's palm perfectly. Satsuki gaped, and at her mother's expectant look, she began to clasp the fan, splaying it out again with a deliberate motion._

_She had never felt something so natural to her._

_ "As an Uchiha kunoichi," she said, "Tessenjutsu is our greatest strength, passed from generation to generation. After seeing you playing with my own tessen fans, I decided it was time that I commissioned your own."_

_ Even after her mother was long gone, Satsuki trained with tessen fans; they were the pivotal point of the Gliding Edge style. They became her pride, and so, not even for her academy bell test, nor her first C-rank mission, had she brought them. They were a gift, to her._

_ Her outlook on this soon changed._

* * *

In Haku's stupor, Satsuki took the opportunity to reach down, and root for two adequately-sized shards of ice from the shattered mirrors.

No such shards came, but awkwardly shaped and somewhat disproportionate ones did.

Satsuki knew she was pushing her boundaries of skill by using a non-collapsable substitute for fans; let alone ones that weren't sizably comparable to her regular fans of choice.

Haku was breathing heavily behind his mask as he regained his senses, vision wavering as he attempted to steady himself.

Satsuki knew there was no chance she could pull out any more ninjutsu.

The two of them settled into a careful stance, and there was an unspoken decision.

_ 'Taijutsu.'_

"Gliding Edge," Satsuki said. She never broke her gaze, and her body contorted into a delicately balanced pose, with the shards splaying out from her palms.

"First Stance."

_ 'Those shards... she's incorporated them into her taijutsu style perfectly, as though she is substituting for a pair of fans...'_

"Tessenjutsu," Haku said, and Satsuki's eyes narrowed.

"When handled carefully, an uchiwa has the power to both rekindle a flame... and to smother it," Satsuki said, her voice even.

Satsuki held the two shards carefully, the two makeshift weapons grazing the thin flesh of her wrists. She smirked.

"So allow me to show you the true power," Satsuki said, "of an Uchiha kunoichi."

The style of the Gliding Edge was a difficult one, that was trained into the Uchiha women from an early age; the grace it required became obvious in every mannerism of an Uchiha woman. The ability to use momentum to expend less energy; careful, graceful, and precise.

The key was to allow the fans to become an extension of that elegance, and Satsuki wished more than anything at that moment that she had brought those fans.

That had been a mistake, and she was paying for it.

Satsuki had no more room for mistakes, and she ran forward.

Haku held longer, thicker senbon in either hand, parrying the deadly edge of an ice shard as Satsuki brought it around in a perfect curve.

The momentum of the spin swung Satsuki's balance to the side, and she crouched, bringing her arms around in a quick spin to hack at Haku's legs; Haku moved out of the way quickly, the sharp edge nicking the cotton of his clothing.

Satsuki quickly launched herself up, running forward with the two shards poised in front of her, and her movement was too quick for Haku to respond to as he staggered on his feet from the quick dodge of Satsuki's low swipe before-

Haku plunged the senbon into the shards, Satsuki pressing the two pieces closer to each side of his jaw, until Haku crowbarred the two shards into the air and out of Satsuki's grip. The success was tainted with the dry heaving that accompanied Satsuki's leg as the girl used his gut as leverage to flip over backwards and away from him.

Satsuki reached for two kunai, and in one swift movement, launched them at Haku.

Haku jumped, but the movement wasn't sufficient; they implanted themselves deeply into his left shin. He faltered.

Haku reached for his senbon, jumping backwards and launching a barrage at them at Satsuki. She did not even move, using the flat edge of the shards to negate every single one. Haku bit his lip.

_'She's fast... just as fast as me, without those ice mirrors, but it's obvious that she can track my movements faster than she can dodge them... and with my legs damaged like this, there's no way I can keep up with that... I have to do something!'_

Haku winced, picking the kunai out of his leg and jumping backwards. He was running the risk of bleeding out, and Satsuki noticed.

"Do you plan on dying here?"

"I wouldn't plan for it," Haku said, "But I will do whatever I have to as a tool."

Satsuki scoffed, settling into a twisted pose. "A tool?" she sneered. "What a sad existence. Living as an instrument of someone else's desires..."

Haku's legs were dripping with blood, but he jumped back, sending a flurry of senbon Satsuki's direction as he did.

"Are you truly that different? Shinobi are tools of a village... I am the tool of a man. You, especially, should know..."

_'What is he trying to say...?!' _Satsuki thought, angering quickly.

"I am the tool of my own intentions," Satsuki hissed, lunging for Haku, and the red of her eyes struck fear into his heart.

_'Those eyes... is she even seeing me...?!'_

Satsuki was too fast, and Haku saw the recognition of his strike before it came, even though she was not fast enough to evade it. As his senbon threatened to pierce through another shard, Satsuki brought the ice shard down to scrape along Haku's arm; Haku plunged the senbon into the girl's shoulder, and her arm loosened and dropped one shard. The victory was short-lived, as Satsuki unleashed a full-frontal assault.

Haku was mesmerised slightly by the style; it was brute force disguised as beauty.

_'You'd fall in love with it before you realised you were dead...'_

Satsuki parried Haku's senbon with the her forearm pressing against Haku's, swiping the shard in her other hand across Haku's stomach. The boy leaned backwards and jarred himself out of the girl's grip, attempting to kick Satsuki's jaw as he flipped over backwards.

The move backfired as Satsuki dodged easily, bringing the shard around with a momentous force that cut a significant amount of Haku's hair and left a gash in his mask.

The hair hadn't had time to fall to the ground when Satsuki stood on her hands and brought her legs around to collide with the side of Haku's head.

The hit launched Haku a few metres, his blood leaving a smudged trail.

Through a hazy double vision, Haku began to panic at Satsuki's approaching form.

_'At this rate... Satsuki will escape, and Zabuza-sama will...'_

Haku stood up, staggering on his feet, and he knew that Satsuki could have killed him in that instant. Whether she did not in order to prolong his suffering, or out of pity, he would never know.

"For Zabuza-sama... for the sake of his dreams… I _cannot _die here…!"

"Tch..."

Haku looked at the young girl. Her expression was contorted with fury.

"Don't expect to see tomorrow," Satsuki said, "when Naruto won't."

Haku smiled beneath his mask.

"True strength... comes about for those we care about. Your will to avenge, and my will to protect..." he said, clasping senbon between each finger, "...are both manifestations of love."

Satsuki scowled, and poised her leg at a 180 degree angle.

"Gliding Edge," she said. "Second Stance."

And with a deafening bang, Satsuki's foot hit the floor.

_ 'A chakra trick… clever. She amplified the noise...'_

He was awakened from his stunned stupor by an elbow to the kidney and the heel of Satsuki's foot being slammed into the back of his knee. She quickly pushed down on his shoulder, sending him to the floor before her knee was rammed into the small of his back. Haku spat blood.

_'Zabuza-sama...'_

"Naruto is finally smiling," Satsuki said, and her mouth was twisting into a smile. "Naruto is finally _smiling!_"

Her laugh shook him to his core.

How many times had Haku seen this? The insane delusions of the grieving…?

"Not like his corpse! Naruto is finally laughing again!" Satsuki howled, laughing hysterically. She doubled over, eyes filling with tears of hysteria. "Laughing!_ Laughing!_ _LAUGHING!_"

Haku took this opportunity to stumble away from the girl, her laughs echoing far in the mist.

Satsuki's laughs began to wash away into mild chuckles, and she looked up, Sharingan spinning wildly and grinning.

"Your death is so close I can taste it," she breathed, "and it is _wonderful_."

And then Satsuki's mouth was at his ear, plunging a shard of ice towards the base of his back. Her whisper was warm in his ear.

"_Die._"

With an abrupt movement, Haku felt several things.

She felt the interference of Zabuza at her back, as he grabbed the Satsuki's slender wrist and swung her, with impressive force, elsewhere.

Then came the interception of Kakashi, quickly engaging with Zabuza, and Haku turned around to see the conflict in his eyes.

This had been with unclear reason until a second later.

Zabuza had made a decision.

* * *

Satsuki had forcefully kicked, with every ounce of her strength, the pile of ice shards towards Haku, and had fully expected the boy to die.

Of all variations Satsuki had expected, she had not accounted for the possibility of Zabuza, the Demon of the Mist, jumping in front of the mass of shards.

Silence reigned, and then, after a moment - with nothing but a gurgle - Zabuza collapsed.

"Zabuza."

The whisper was empty sounding, and Satsuki had not heard Haku refer to his master without any kind of honorific.

"Zabuza," Haku repeated, crawling slowly towards the man. "Zabuza. _Zabuza._"

"Haku," the man said, his voice weak. He sounded like he was going to say more, but nothing came.

"Zabuza," Haku said. "You fool."

Zabuza coughed. The sound made Satsuki cringe.

"_You're_ a fool," Zabuza said. "Working for a washed out demon like me…"

"I'm no fool! Zabuza… Zabuza-sama, we have to- we'll break the deal, with Gatou, I'll escape and heal you-"

"Shut up, Haku. That's enough."

Zabuza sounded tired; weary.

"Why?" Haku said, choking with the thousands of things he was trying to push out at once. "Why would you- I'm just a tool to you, Zabuza-sama! For a tool, why would you-"

"Is that how you saw it?" Zabuza said, voice straining. "For a ninja, Haku, you were always so gullible."

The bridge was quiet, and though opportunity certainly presented itself, Satsuki herself knew - and knew through the quiet, unchallenging posture of Kakashi - that to attack now was simply not right.

"You were too kind," Zabuza said. "Too kind for killing. I'm… I'm sorry for that. I have… a lifetime of apologies to make to you… worst of all, letting your dreams rely on a man like me…"

"I made that choice, Zabuza-sama," Haku whispered.

"The good in this world comes through the young. The brutal practices of that Mizukage… making young children kill one another… even as I killed anyone and everyone for money, in my mind was that belief. It doesn't atone for my sins, but…

"I'm sorry for this, Haku," Zabuza said, eyes shutting. "For all of the things I made you do. Each time, I told you to kill your heart… but you were just too gentle for that. One, final thing…"

"Yes?"

"Take that stupid mask off… there is no shame in your tears."

Zabuza passed away.

"Zabuza," Haku whispered. "Zabuza."

With a choked cry, Haku lay his head on Zabuza's chest and sobbed.

The act was pitiful; tears that fell silently, the tears of a boy without purpose. Satsuki had willed herself not to look away, but there came a point.

"What did you…" Haku said, the words not quiet but a whisper all the same. "What did you expect me to do with this worthless life of mine, Zabuza-sama…?"

Haku clasped the sides of his head, stumbling to his feet with an uncertainty of balance.

Kakashi watched with bated breath, poised to strike. The boy had his head in his hands, fingers pressed tightly to his flesh with tufts of hair clenched in between.

His quivering, unstable rage quieted, and Haku slowly pulled away his mask, and dropped it to the floor.

Satsuki froze.

"It was you," she said. "_You!_ In the woods!"

Haku was silent.

Satsuki felt rage bubbling inside of her, and she clenched her fists. "If you have dreams of protecting those you love… how could you _possibly…!? _How could you _possibly_ have done this?! If you understand that, then…!"

"My dreams," Haku said, "were Zabuza's dreams. My hopes were Zabuza's hopes. I lived for the purpose of serving him… and without him, I…"

"Living for the purpose of serving someone else's desires," Satsuki said, boiling with anger, "is _ridiculous._"

"Is that not what _you _have done?"

Satsuki stopped.

"Is that not what you have done," Haku said, "by living your life in hatred, as your brother asked? By living your life in a search for power? Are you not serving the desires of someone else, as a tool? And even then… your existence is reliant on vengeance. Reliant on an empty justice…"

"Empty justice," Satsuki said, her voice low. "Empty justice?! You _killed_ Naruto! He did nothing but dream of being acknowledged! He was naive and stupid and he pissed me off, but you took away his hopes and dreams! Don't call this an _empty justice…!_"

Haku was quiet for a moment, and then he closed his eyes, head tilted towards the sky as though he were searching for stars behind his eyelids.

"But what would Naruto say? Would he thank you?"

And then, Satsuki had no more words for Haku.

"You told me in the woods that day," Haku said, "that you had no one worthy of protecting. That you didn't need anyone like that, that bonds like that would only hold you back. And yet…

"It seems as though, had it not been for Naruto's intervention, you would be dead."

Satsuki didn't say anything.

"Ahh! You useless bastards."

The ninja flicked their attention to the end of the bridge, and out stepped - with a platoon of mercenaries at his back - a short man, with thick black glasses, and a disgusting grin.

"With all the things I'd heard about you two, I thought you could polish off a decrepit old man," he snorted, "But that's not the case, eh?"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "Gatou."

"And you two were expensive, you know!" Gatou said, stepping forward with a reliance on his cane. "Figured I'd finish both of off to replenish my funds, you know what I'm saying? But looks like half the job is done!"

Haku stood from his master's body, and turned to Gatou.

"I have one final gift to you, ninja of Konoha... on one condition." His voice was as cold as his ice.

"What?" Satsuki whispered, and her heart went cold as Haku turned his face to her and opened his eyes.

His eyes were formed of an entire, unseeing, illustrious ice, with not iris nor pupil to speak of; pure, untainted ice, in the sockets of Haku's skull-

"Forge your own path," he said. "And find dreams."

A cackle resounded from Gatou's mouth, and Satsuki scowled.

"Dreams! Pretty words for a mercenary!" Gatou said, talking between his snorts. "I won't waste a second on a brat like you now that demon is dead. Harmless, isn't he?"

The jibes were followed by the stout man poking at Zabuza's eyelids with his walking stick, pushing aside the skin to expose the unseeing eyes behind.

Satsuki's face tightened with anger, and she stepped forward purposefully, but was stopped by the silent, motionless stance of Haku.

"My final favour to you all," Haku said, stepping forward with a posture that spoke volumes more than his monotone voice, "is to rid this world of this wretched man."

Satsuki, without thinking, stepped back, and Gatou too stumbled backwards.

"What are you saying, brat...?! Those eyes of yours- g-get him! _Demon child!_"

Gatou stumbled through his crowd of henchmen, towards the half-constructed edge of the bridge.

"Satsuki-san," Sakura said. "The ocean is...!"

And so, Satsuki looked.

The ocean itself, from the bridge to the radius surrounding it, was freezing, a spiderweb-like network of ice forming from the piers beneath the bridge outwards, the landscape coating in a reflective grey. The falling snow thickened.

There was an affirmative cry amongst the mercenary ranks, their weapons lifting to the sky, and they began forward.

Satsuki felt the shaking of the bridge as there was a sharp, cutting noise and the scraping of crumbling brick.

In the most beautifully disgusting show of murder Satsuki would ever bear witness to, a twisted spire of ice pierced through the bridge and through Gatou, launching through his corpse and spraying body parts and blood over the bridge.

His glasses, and his finger, landed in front of Sakura, staining her ankle with a splash of red.

She threw up.

The mercenaries stilled, their faces dripping with blood, before attempting to run.

Satsuki's hands shook first, and then she found herself on her knees, dry heaving, eyes straining as she vomited.

Haku fell down, and the bridge was quiet.

"Satsuki."

The noise was barely audible, and wiping her mouth, Satsuki responded. The fear permeated her voice.

"Yes?"

"Zabuza-sama," Haku croaked, "Please. Let me see him..."

Her nodding was slow and hesitant, and Satsuki lifted Haku and set him beside Zabuza's corpse. He was light.

The snowfall was slow and gentle as Haku turned to Zabuza's peaceful form, with outstretched, icy fingers.

"Dreaming... do you dream, even in death, Zabuza-sama? And of what...?"

* * *

Satsuki headed to Naruto with a body full of holes, and a heart full of lead.

The mist had cleared, and where Naruto lay, not snow nor blood had tread. The snowfall had stopped short of him, as had the bloodshed; he lay in a bed of ice.

Satsuki walked by his side, and her knees trembled as she knelt down beside him.

Satsuki did not cry.

* * *

_"Do not cry. He led his life as an admirable shinobi, and he died as one."_

_ Fugaku's voice was stern, and Satsuki scrubbed at her tears with the sleeve of her black dress, swallowing a hiccup and trying to blink back tears._

_ Itachi's presence was empty and unmoving beside her. Satsuki had had half a mind to be indignant at how he ignored her every word, until she had seen the first and only tear fall._

_ The day was uncomfortable; storm clouds had lingered overhead continuously, threatening rain and never spilling. When the end of the day had come, and Shisui had been firmly under dirt, Mikoto had took her daughter aside._

_ "It's okay to cry," she said. _

_ Satsuki did not cry._

* * *

Satsuki felt her gut twist when she looked at Naruto. He had not moved an inch.

The hope that he would have was terribly, and illogically, pathetic.

"Liar," she said. Satsuki leaned forward, burying her head in the folds of his orange jacket. It was so cold, and the scent of everything that was Naruto had been stained by blood and the icy air.

"You stupid _liar…_"

And for a brief moment, she wanted to cry. She wanted tears to come, she wanted to sob; just to prove to herself, to Naruto's dead and empty corpse, that she cared, because only now-

Only now did she see that she _had_, and it was just so wrong when she saw those things she had said to Haku. That she had said there was no one worth protecting, because-

-because Naruto had cared enough to _die_ for her.

He'd had dreams, and Satsuki had always thought them stupid, irrational and brash, just like she had Naruto, but somewhere along the way had came that spark of-

_"I swear by the cut on this hand that I won't hold anyone back, and that I won't give up. And I never go back on my word…!"_

-belief.

She had _believed_ in Naruto, and yet, the tears _would not come._

The corpse beneath her groaned.

"Eurgh…"

Satsuki started, launching back off of Naruto with wide eyes.

To her complete and utter amazement-

"My… fuck, my _back…_"

-Uzumaki Naruto-

"Ow… ow, ow _ow…_"

-was _rising from the dead._

Satsuki's words caught in her throat as Naruto's bright blue eyes met hers. He blinked, before grinning widely.

His laughter resounded across the whole bridge.

"Heh-heh! I fooled you, huh?" Naruto said, laughing and sticking his tongue out at Satsuki. "It's what you get for doubting the word of Uzumaki Naruto!"

Satsuki was speechless.

"You're…" Satsuki whispered, the words refusing to come.

"Uh… Satsuki…?"

Satsuki could only describe the sensation as being dropped from a cliff, only to find Heaven below.

"You idiot," she said, words catching in her throat. "Trying to play off something like that…! And… And I _still_ hate you!"

As she looked at Naruto's smile and open - gloriously, gloriously _seeing! _- blue eyes, Satsuki choked, let out a sob, and began to cry.

* * *

And so came the tale of the Great Naruto Bridge.

The bridge that brought the Land of Waves to prosperity was both strong and reliable; just like the ninja who had fought valiantly for it, who had brought the people of that country to believe in the power of unity. And so, it was named after that knuckleheaded ninja.

A fair distance across the bridge, there comes a spot that sends travellers and tradesmen into confusion; no matter what the weather, there is a stretch on this bridge that is thick with mist, and constant, unceasing snowfall.

The tale speaks of a spectre of Ice and a spectre of Mist, who protect the bridge and those who pass by upon it, by misleading those with evil intentions and casting them overboard and allowing a clear path to those with only good in mind.

The unspoken tale speaks of two mercenaries, who died together with nothing more than a young ninja to carry away the tale of their lives and dreams.

The less romantic part of that tale speaks of their pathetic deaths, of how a boy pledged himself to a selfish man, but the better part of that tale speaks of how their tales lived on.

Indeed, their tales lived on, carving the strange, uncertain, and certainly _wrong_ future.

Because those tales, whilst wonderful, and heart-wrenchingly inspirational, were supposed to ascertain the future of a brash young boy, and yet these words had only reached the ears of a cold young girl.

But that was how it went, and so, the future went with it.

* * *

**A/N: Do you like toasties? What do you have on them?**

**Uh, if they're called something different elsewhere, I mean two pieces of toast on top of each other with something in the middle. Usually cut into two triangles.**


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